Shinobi Adventurer, Land of Magic
by Soren Yagami
Summary: The 4th Shinobi War is over, but the costs and sacrifices it took to get there will have repercussions in another world too. Naruto Uzumaki might not be able to return home, but getting a second chance isn't that bad, right? Getting to explore a whole new world and having a little cutie as a sister was a bonus in his book.
1. Chapter 1

**Seeing the idea was not leaving my head at all, I started writing this, let's see where it takes me.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except maybe the ideas that inspired the story. All the material regarding Naruto and Fairy Tail are propierty of its owners.**

* * *

It was finally over.

The battle had completely destroyed the beauty of the landscape, leaving dry earth surrounding them from all directions, making one wonder if there ever had been any kind of life to begin with. The huge amount of corpses didn't help with the feeling of death and loss permeating the air, the survivors unmoving, as if they couldn't understand the scene their eyes were showing them.

Finally, someone moved. Or rather, fell leaving a 'plop' noise echoing throughout the place.

"Naruto!" at once, multiple shadows surrounded the fallen youth, their _Shunshin no Jutsu_ making no sound at all, a testament to the mastery the men had of the technique, the breeze being the only sound on the newly formed valley. The young man looked fine compared to the rest of them, yet it seemed everyone was fearing the worst after his lack of response. No one knew what happened during the hour the blond and Madara were trapped on a dome of pure darkness so the worry was justified.

"Can't believe this moronic brat outdid all of us and ended the battle…" Tobirama Senju, Nidaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato could only shake his head in exasperation, no matter how much his own brother grinned like an idiot, one teenager wasn't supposed to endure the punishment this one did and still rise again and again to save them all. Weren't they supposed to protect the new generation and ensure their future? Guide them and mold them to attain their potential? To see one youth take charge and carry the weight of the world as if it was natural frustrated him to no end.

"Why, you mad bro?" in the blink of an eye, water materialized on the air and slices of it rushed towards the taunting voice of the first Hokage Hashirama Senju, the man laughing and dodging the deadly liquid as if it was a game he had played endless times before.

"B-Bastard!" the water slices multiplying and traveling more fiercely towards the cackling legend, multiple veins throbbing on Tobirama's face, "Stop acting as if this was all thanks to you! Only because that knucklehead could be your reincarnation it doesn't mean you won! " the rest of the survivors of the Shinobi Alliance finally waking from their trances due the landscape changing once again courtesy of Tobirama's attacks on his brother, the previous sorrowful atmosphere quickly changing to stupefaction, sweatdrops on all.

"Phsaw! Might as well be my win, seeing he is the closest thing to an heir I'll ever get."

"RRRAAAAGHHHHHH!" Hashirama's smirk suddenly disappeared, seeing how all the previously generated water began gathering on one spot following Tobirama's hands making the signs at godly speed for his jutsu.

"Suiton: Seigi no ikari no hanmā! _(Hammer of Righteous Fury!)_" aptly named, the water descended on the First before he could react and smashed him to the ground, making the earth tremble and leaving an imprint of the Shodai.

One of the men with Naruto stopped gaping like an idiot and tried to recover his poise, "Those two were my goal, my dream since I was a toddler… to see them like this makes me feel dumb for that." Despite missing an arm, Minato Namikaze looked as calm and collected as ever, watching his predecessors rearranging the land with their squabble while one woman healed his son with the _Shōsen no Jutsu_, doing her best to not miss an inch of the boy she needed alive to retire from the Kage position… and it's piles of paperwork.

She could swear it was currently growing on her desk at the Hokage Tower back home, despite the lack of sense it made.

"You know you have no right to complain right? Imagine how your image would be ruined if people knew you were totally whipped by Kushina." Minato sputtered and blushed, embarrassed at remembering those days.

"You only say that because everyone already knows your reputation as the Legendary Sucker Tsunade, hard to see you falling more." Before Minato could gloat more, he crashed on the ground thanks to a _gentle_ bop on the head from the Godaime.

"Naruto is fine, just needs to rest for a while, any chance you can ask the toads to keep him on their home for a while?" the Yellow Flash could only twitch enough to liberate his remaining arm and put it on a Summoning Seal Tsunade had made using Naruto's blood.

A couple of puffs later, Naruto was on Mount Myōboku and the Kages started organizing everyone to retreat from the desolate battlefield and finally rest.

"Come back and face my wrath Hashirama!"

"Bwahahahaha!"

…

At least most of the Kages did. Watching some of the most revered legends of the shinobi era act like idiots just killed the tension and relief that should fill the area.

It also helped nearly everyone with forgetting to question how Naruto survived after being trapped with Madara and the Shinigami on that dome, created after the Kages used the Shiki Fūjin.

* * *

_A week later, on an undisclosed location, probably Konoha?_

"What?!" Kakashi, Minato, Tsunade, Shizune and Hashirama yelled in perfect unison and shock.

"Not even one 'Nice idea Nidaime-sama!' Really?" if he was annoyed, Tobirama's neutral tone masked it pretty well.

"Ano… Tobirama-sama? Not to question your judgment, but why decide this on your own, without even asking Naruto?" ever the respectful one, Shizune just raised her hand meekly while looking really confused.

"Keh! As if I need his word to do as I want to, it's for the good of everyone after all." Shizune could only meep and hide behind her mentor, still feeling the glare of the younger Senju brother.

"Uncle, Shizune has a good point, now is not the time for such things. The war is over and Konoha still needs to heal, and there's many things to do before nonsense such as training trips."

"Such as, little Tsuna?" one had to give credit to Tsunade, seeing she was not giving to her uncle's stare and tone, which was known to even put Hashirama in his place every now and then.

A crack could be heard and papers floated on the air, another desk had given its life in the service of the village, though at least it had avoided the fate of some of its brethen, flying to the Hokage Monument on one of the Godaime's temper tantrums, "Such as all this damn paperwork! You three should be helping me with this agent of hell that keeps me from my sake!"

In perfect synchronicity, the three undead Kage level Shinobi started to step away while smiling sheepishly, such was their fear. Was it of the Senju woman or the paperwork? Maybe no one would ever know.

"You're right Tsuna! Time to use the ol' Mokuton to help Konoha shine again!" one puff.

"Now that I think about it, the Barrier Team was asking for my help since yesterday, better lend my expertise seeing it's so urgent." two puffs.

"Going to Ichiraku's, saves me from trying to find the brat later." puff number three. Thankfully, Tobirama's nonchalance stupefied Tsunade enough from giving pursuit or destroying more of her office.

It wouldn't be until much later, that all of them would remember the Nidaime's plan, and how they forgot to stop him.

* * *

_Ichirakus's_

"Ossan! Keep 'em coming 'ttebayo!"

"Trying to break your record again gaki?" Ichiraku Teuchi couldn't help but smile, it was good to know some things would never change. His bank account liked that too.

"Naruto-kun! You promised me you would taste my latest tsukemen recipe! Stop with the ramen!"

"Maa maa, that can wait Ayame-chan, its only tsukemen after all. Nothing on the food of the gods." Just as he reached for another ramen bowl, the young Uzumaki felt a shiver on his back that petrified him. Raising his face, sweat started to pour from all his body at Ayame's sweet smile, as if there wasn't an aura of death behind her that had Teuchi cringing too.

"Na-ru-to-kun?"

Seeing it was his ramen record on the line, the Uzumaki gathered all his courage, clapping his hands and bowing to his Ramen princess as if in prayer, "…Can we do that at my apartment later Ayame-chan? I'll even treat ya to some shopping and dinner after the ramen 'ttebayo!" If Jiraiya ever had a use, it was for his extensive knowledge on evading feminine fury that never worked for him sadly.

Fortunately, the young chef in training completely misunderstood him, _'Shopping and dinner…? Like a date…?' _blushing madly and in a daze, there was no way she noticed the tall, fair-skinned man with white, shaggy hair, red-colored eyes and red marking on his face entering their bar.

"Nidaime-sama!"

"Teuchi." A brief nod on the direction of the owner of Ichiraku, Tobirama folded his arms and glanced at Naruto without showing any surprise to his presence, "Weren't you supposed to arrive later today boya?"

The jinchuriki could only deadpan at the Nidaime, "Have you tried to survive only from bugs jiji?"

"Irrelevant. Just follow me brat." And with that, he left the stall without waiting to see if he was being followed or not.

…

"Naruto, you have to follow him."

"But the ramen..." good thing Teuchi was used to his favorite customer's antics, otherwise the Nidaime would have been ignored completely in favor of his ramen, no matter how good it felt to be considered so important by Naruto, or his ramen at least.

"Later Ayame-chan!" Stuck on dreamland, Ayame never noticed when 'her future date' left too, the blonde clueless to her daydream of endless shopping, previous offer for a pseudo-date already forgotten.

* * *

_Outskirts of Konohagakure_

Walking through the forest outside Konoha, Naruto couldn't help but grin while putting his hands on the back of his head. Learning Senjutsu had made him feel at home in all areas where nature flourished, "So, where are we going jiji?"

Having learnt from Tsunade about his quirk with respect to authority, Tobirama restrained himself from pounding the Uzumaki, _'Having white hair isn't a sign of being old, damnit!'_ "Somewhere where you'll be forced to learn what you need to know from now on."

Not even a hint of anger or anything else could be discerned from his calm tone, damn but Naruto was impressed. Normally he had his superiors losing their cool with maddening ease.

"I don't like it, that doesn't sound as me learning mad cool jutsus from you…"

"You won't, fixing your mindset comes first."

"Wha-" fortunately, Naruto was too shocked at their destination that he forgot he should be mad at that jibe against him, jaw already on the floor.

They had been walking close to an hour, maybe two but they had reached what seemed to be the remains of an old Shinto Shrine, the building showing its age with how it looked like it could fall down on any moment. Naruto's eyes were glued to the entrance, seeing above the main door a symbol we was all too familiar with.

A spiral. _His spiral_, his mind reminded him hastily. The symbol of the Uzumaki clan, _his clan._

"So, willing to learn now?" he allowed himself a smirk seeing the Uzumaki rush to the shrine, before crashing against the air and looking rather foolish, "Say hello to the Uzumaki's Mask Storage Temple, and its barrier." A life dealing with the First had left a mean streak on his brother, one he would gladly abuse on someone that reminded him so much of all his brother's faults and odd quirks.

Tobirama Senju was a realist, and known as a logical and pragmatic, but that didn't mean he was above petty revenge and childish tantrums, _'They thought Hashirama was better to train this brat for Hokage? As if! Might as well fix him like I did old Hashi… I'll make this brat into a real shinobi, not just an overpowered clone of my brother.'_ the following months, Naruto Uzumaki would know despair. It's not as if the Nidaime was mad and jealous no one took after him like they did for Madara and the Shodai, he was a first grade badass too! The three had marked a whole shinobi era and he felt the world owed him due respect. That the closest thing to his ideal image of a shinobi was Uchiha Itachi was something he would gladly ignore due bias too.

It wouldn't be until the next day that Tsunade, Hashirama, Minato and Kakashi would notice the disappearance of both shinobi. Konohagakure no Sato lost the ideal image of the Shodai and Yondaime Hokages at the temper tantrum both did that day looking for the Kyuubi jinchūriki, yelling it was not fair at all, and stuff about dibs on training future kages/family.

* * *

Four months.

FOUR. FRIGGIN'. MONTHS.

Naruto wanted to die and have his soul obliterated, currently content with just lazing on the rooftop of the Mask Temple and reminiscing while watching the stars.

The Nidaime was insane! His training was notches behind anything he had done before, the first hours of each day dedicated to forcing his body to memorize stances, katas, hand signs and every now and then, jutsu. By the time meals were done and still warm to eat (courtesy of clones), he had to be dragged to the table by his sensei, who seemed to take pleasure in making him eat dirt while being pulled from his leg to the Mask Storage Temple.

And for a while, even the meal was a horrible time for the blond, seeing he was being forced to eat food made by his clones that were slowly learning to cook. It took him a whole month to pass from poisoning himself to making edible stuff, time in which he was ever so thankful to his tenant for helping with the stomachache and any other problems with his body and nutrition. His afternoons were sadly dedicated to basic education and manners, something Tobirama was fiercely adamant about after getting tired of being called jiji, citing it was an absolute requirement not only for a future kage, but as a person. It took him a whole week of beating and punishment to convince his scatterbrained student to comply, if only to avoid the pain.

The second month had been dedicated to more of the same in the physical training, along with survival training and foraging, for which they had actually left the temple and traveled to the former Uzushiogakure, trying to see if there was anything to salvage from his ancestry. As expected, there was nothing useful seeing people probably had done the same countless times, but Naruto had collected and assortment of trinkets just for sentimental value which left him satisfied. Afternoons were the same, but at least he had forced his sensei to allow him to nurture a small assortment of potted plants to soothe himself.

The third month was used refine his elements back at the Mask Temple, which meant learning at least basic jutsu and manipulation of the non-wind elements. Also, he finally had gotten some weapon training that was beyond Tenten using him as a dummy to sharpen her own skills and his reflexes. After that, the rest of the day was used to make him learn about the Uzumaki clan in its entirety, history, specialties, characteristics, way of life, common physical traits and anything one could think about it. While boring in the way it was done, by constant lectures and actual oral testing, he couldn't help but love it. Just knowing he was from an actual clan was enough to push him to do his best in soaking up knowledge, no matter how strict and methodical his sensei was. He would freely admit he was still bad at anything that was not kinesthetic, but his drive to honor his heritage and stubborn streak made him persevere.

Finally, the current month had been strange in that part of it was unusually lax, seeing Tobirama had decided to take Naruto to travel and visit all the people he had met on his life as a ninja, with the occasional spar to test how much he had gained from all the morning training. They had visited everywhere thanks to Tobirama's ludicrous use of the Hiraishin no Jutsu. The man freely admitted that was possible due the way his tags worked, and the paranoia of the times he lived in.

"_These tags were meant to be used as warping points for surprise attacks against other villages and strategic points back then."_

Naruto had enjoyed seeing all his friends, surprising Tobirama with the trust and rapport he seemed to have in all the hidden villages and many other places, to the point he had revealed one of the purposes of their travelling.

"_I was expecting to have fun grilling you to the ground regarding politics and how to manage foreign affairs, but your method seems good. For now."_

During that month, his favorite places were easily Kiri, Kumo, Snow Country and Demon Country, all of them had been _interesting_ and reminded him the most of his travels with the Toad Sannin Jiraiya, seeing he had truly bonded with the Nidaime while traveling, talking about anything that could come to mind. He had done _**all**_ the things he had set to accomplish with this trip, and for that he was grateful to the man.

'_Still, why is sensei so stubborn about not going beyond the basics of fuuinjutsu and kenjutsu before mastering the basics? What a drag dattebayo…' _he knew that his sensei was good on kenjutsu at least, remembering the whole debacle with the Raijin no Ken and Rokusho Aoi. And yet, he had only progressed as far as being able to hold most weapons properly, and swinging them without looking an idiot. Regarding fuuinjutsu, he constantly worked on his calligraphy, Tobirama citing he barely could understand what Naruto dubbed as writing.

"Your head looks about to overheat gaki."

"Sensei!" he had thought he had fallen asleep, though seeing he was just wearing his short sleeved blue kimono and pants, tied with his usual yellow sash and no mesh shirt underneath, maybe he just woke up, "what's up?"

"We need to talk."

"About?"

"The past, the future and your resolve." Was that some regret on the Second's face? Naruto had a really bad feeling about this, in all this time he had not seen his current sensei both so serious and regretful at the same time. He could only straighten and sit at this.

"Hit me."

…

…

…

That night, Tobirama Senju couldn't hate himself more. And yet, he couldn't be prouder at the end of it, he had finally understood why everyone seemed to have so much faith in the brat.

* * *

Two weeks after that night, both master and student are seen walking towards Konoha, Tobirama watching his student's back as they walk, _'That week in Demon Country really got him out of his funk, it was becoming too annoying.'_

"Sensei, look!" following the blond's excited gestures, he could see the village, looking as good as new.

As they neared the gate, Izumo and Kotetsu guarding the main gate as usual stiffened and triggered a seal, just waving at the duo as they entered the village. Unfortunately, the moment Naruto stepped into, the sky started to darken, the blond's expression doing the same.

"So soon…?" multiple people immediately surrounding the blond after being alerted of his return by the seal, all forgetting the stomping the Second was due to receive from the other undead kages.

"**I gave you more than enough time, don't you agree Uzumaki Naruto?"**

"Naruto…?" confusion reigned among all the gathered shinobi, who seemed completely calm at the grave voice resounding everywhere, walking away from them. Only a few individuals having a vague idea of what this could mean, and it terrified them.

"Hai hai… it was more than I expected, thank you." Taking a tag out of his pouch, he flared his chakra for a second, throwing it between him and the gathered ninja.

A skeletal hand grasped the tag midair, materializing along the rest of the Shinigami's body.

"It is done. As heir of the Uzumaki clan, I bequeath all the promised relics entrusted to us by the death god. Per our accord, I also tagged all the other known artifacts related to you and beings of your rank that bind them to this dimension."

The spectral form seemed to nod at this, **"Our pact is done then. Just one thing remains."**

"Naruto! What's the meaning of this?!" being the first to recover from seeing his son act so respectfully, _among the rest of this chaos,_ Minato could only gape and wonder.

Naruto just chuckled embarrassedly, glancing at the Shinigami to avoid all the stares, "Can I…?"

"**You can."**

Nodding, Naruto just went back to address all the gathered people, by now nearly all the village surrounding the main group, "I never defeated Madara… I cheated." Before chaos could erupt, the blond raised his hand asking for silence. The fact he was so serious and collected helped to avoid any reactions besides shock and silence.

"The moment the zombie kages performed the Shiki Fujin, I was sealed along Madara on a dome of darkness unlike what everyone expected, this was the Shinigami's reaction at sensing me without Kurama's chakra to cloud my presence and lineage from it." Closing his eyes, he sighed and tried to remember the events of the dome and how to explain it easily. Meanwhile, the Kages sans Tsunade could only rage at being referred as zombies.

"**Hurry."**

"Gah! Okay! To make things short, I made a pact with the death god as Uzumaki clan heir and warden of its relics. Did I mention my clan was tasked with the bond that binds the Shinigami to this dimension?" As jaws started to drop, the Uzumaki could only laugh, "I learnt that from Orochimaru-teme, and confirmed it at the Mask Temple afterwards, moving on!"

Making hand signs at an amazing speed, Naruto placed his palm on the ground, **"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"** pumping insane amounts of chakra, the usual marks and seals that followed a summoning extended upwards, instead of the usual pattern, leading to nine explosions of smoke on the skies of Konohagakure and an immense pressure on the air.

"My condition for this pact: First, the removal of Madara Uchiha from the Elemental Nations! Second, liberating the Tailed Beasts from this realm and the creation of a haven for them! The third and final one was surprisingly something both me and the Shinigami wanted so it had no cost!" grinning stupidly while doing Gai's good guy pose, Naruto allowed the Shinigami to continue explaining while the smoke dissipated, the Bijuu waiting patiently knowing this was coming for a while from talking with the last jinchuuriki.

"**Balance. This entails breaking all current links between the Pure and Impure Worlds, so no mortal can break the balance of the world again. I allowed some of these links to remain per Uzumaki Naruto's request, in his words: 'Just enough time to let the realm and my home to heal.' As he mentioned before, I tasked him with gathering all the elements that bind divine beings to this dimension and he performed as expected. Finally, both the cost of my summoning and the third condition on my side relate to each other, so I allowed him to remain alive unlike previous summoners."**

Only the kages and Shikamaru Nara caught some things that were unclear from this pact, the undead kages were obviously the links that were allowed to remain in the Elemental Nations while everything returned to a semblance of normalcy. But what about Naruto?

"That means you will finally let me know why I was not devoured after the whole Madara obliteration?" cocking his head to the side, Naruto just keep his gaze on the death god, as confused as everyone else about that.

"**You were not my summoner, so it is stupid to think I would devour you like the others. I would have not answered the Shiki Fujin if I didn't sense you for starters, those souls are still mine despite the breach of the seal done by Orochimaru of the Sannin. As the ignorant warden of my relics, I decided to appear and make this pact with you. The cost was not told at the beginning simply because it would depend on how you did your part."**

"So…?" Seriously, would it kill a death god to not be so redundant? Naruto wanted this to be done so he could enjoy some Ichiraku ramen, four months deprived of its greatness was hell.

**Play Togireta Jikan/Interrupted Moment - Shimomura Youko (Radiant Historia OST)**

"**You will be exiled from this realm. What I decide to do with you from there is only for me to know." **

"EH?" And there goes his hopes for ramen.

"**All the conditions will be fulfilled in one hour, understood?"**

A couple of puffs were heard and of all the village populace, only the Ichirakus and Naruto seemed to be missing, all the kages and most of Naruto's friends appearing where he previously stood via Shunshin.

"**That brat!" **Let it be known that an Uzumaki had a completely different view on priorities if the constant yelling and destroyed property was a sign, as he was not found during that hour by anyone.

* * *

"Ossan! Hurry and make as much ramen as you can, hurry!"

"Naruto…?" Ayame's thoughts were a mess, but even she knew there was only one thing to ask. His father was just carrying all the ingredients from Ichiraku's to the kitchen the small house Naruto had took them after his escape.

"Ayame?"

"Why did you run?"

"I only have one hour, I wanted to spend it with the people I cherish the most in the village. Also, ramen." The young waitress could only laugh while hugging the blond, tears falling nonstop from both. Minutes later, Teuchi left the broth to watch the scene, touched that he valued them above all the others who would seem as the more obvious targets of his affection. Then again, he knew the only people he suspected came close were not around anymore.

'_Sandaime-sama and Iruka-san would be so proud of how far you have come Naruto-kun…' _he had heard how both had took to protect the jinchūriki after the Kyuubi extraction during the war, losing their lives (or unlife in the Third's case) in their efforts. He could only sigh knowing this was the last time they would see him.

"Want the recipe Naruto-kun?" Ayame only felt herself be dragged by the force of Naruto's movement to hug the old ramen chef, the three staying like that until the ramen was ready.

* * *

"**It is time."**

Naruto could only smile sadly at the gathered village, most still visibly angry he had disappeared and stopped them from any farewells but now unable to do anything.

"Everyone, I leave it in your hands. Ero-sennin's dream is so close, and I trust you guys to make it happen." With a last thumbs up to the kages who were starting to disintegrate, Naruto felt the bijuu approaching, each one making one of their tails approach and do their equivalent of a fist bump, Gyuuki and Kurama smirking at him while doing so in remembrance of Kirabii before entering a portal made by the Shinigami.

**"Uzumaki Naruto."**

"Anything else sack of bones?" seeing he was being exiled and possibly ending on somewhere unpleasant, he had to make one dig at the death god.

"**You won't leave any regret or pending affairs in this dimension, they'll follow you to your next journey."**

"WHA-" and he suddenly vanished from the Elemental Nations _'not even getting to have the last word? Stupid death god being a smartass.'_

* * *

_Earthland, near Cait Shelter_

Currently resting on a grassy hill, a small blue haired girl watched the starry sky sadly, feeling a small shiver from the breeze seeing she was just wearing a simple dress with a blue and yellow wavy stripes design, with white pointed edges. Seeing one star twinkling more than the rest, she rapidly stood on her knees and took a praying position while closing her eyes.

'_I wish Jellal was here…'_

A loud explosion made her jump backwards and trip, the smell of smoke and sulfur reaching her nose and making her hurry to stand.

Apparently the gods were not really paying attention, seeing that instead of her friend Jellal she got a blond in a glaringly orange jumpsuit laying on a crater, surprisingly without any major injuries.

* * *

**And there we go! Definitely would appreciate all the positive and constructive kind of input I can get. Any grammar issues help also welcomed seeing English is not my first language. Will try to do a more through check seeing this is not beta'ed and I published as soon as I finished before leaving for home :P**

**If it's not obvious by now, I had the story idea, but no title or good summary so tips are welcomed :D Mostly a setup chapter seeing most of the ideas flying on my head are too far into the future. By the way, anyone has a good Fairy Tail timeline around so I can check some facts and such?**

**Tried to leave some hints to future events and possibilities there, would be fun to see if anyone can guess what they are and/or could mean.**

**Finally, no idea on pairings if there are, though I'm biased to multi/harem due being indecisive haha**


	2. Chapter 2

**Gotta admit the response so far has been above what I expected for an unknown writer so thanks! **

**Will deal with some of the questions/concerns on the author's note at the end of the chapter most of the time.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except maybe the ideas that inspired the story. All the material regarding Naruto and Fairy Tail are property of its owners.**

* * *

Half horrified and half curious, Wendy jumped into the crater to check on the blond. Doing her best not to trip, she got close enough to be able to distinguish anything besides the orange monstrosity and the mop of blond hair of the unconscious young man.

Even covered by soot, ash and not easily seen due the smoke, his hair was spiky and an absolute mess. The jumpsuit had many tears and some burns from what she assumed was a chaotic landing, apparently resilient enough to protect its owner, but wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks in its current state.

"He looks as if someone cannonballed him just for the fun of it… ouch." On another plane, one death god observing the scene couldn't help but feel vindicated, trying to make fun of THE Shinigami? Hah, that brat would learn a lesson, seeing the nasty surprises it left to the Uzumaki.

Slowly activating her magic, Wendy was glad the hill was one of the areas with the cleanest air around, which would make easy healing the minor injuries she could see on the older kid, _'He looks a bit smaller than Jellal… maybe 9 or 10 years old?'_ after dealing with most of his body, her hands finally reached his face and focused on the strange scars on his cheeks.

Ten minutes later, Wendy could only stare at the boy confused,_ 'I failed to heal those scars?'_, deactivating her healing magic, she began to trace her fingers on the scars, realizing they were not scars at all, _'Birthmarks…?'_ Carefully moving his head, she finally managed to gaze in detail at the boys' face.

"So cute! Like a kitty!" the little girl could only giggle in delight at such a cute trait, forgetting she was holding his head and dropping him, a bump slowly growing to her embarrassment.

Glad that no one was around to see that, Wendy began dragging the knocked out blond towards her guild grabbing his legs, if her squealing didn't wake the blond she doubted anything short of violence would. Moments like these made her wish she had a semblance of control over her magic, and not only the instinctual control she seemed to have over her only two spells so far.

* * *

An hour later, the duo finally approached the small settlement of Cait Shelter, some of her guildmates noticed the small girl and boy, quickly rushing to help Wendy as she looked tired.

"Uh… did you bother to check on the boy while bringing him here Wendy?"

"No, why?" Blinking and adopting a curious expression, Wendy glanced at her guildmate carrying the blond, finally noticing the multiple bumps on his head. All her guildmates chuckled good naturedly while heading to the guild building, the little girl completely red out of embarrassment.

"Master!" entering the guild hall, everyone sans Wendy gazed at the door that led to the Master's office, the small form of the guild master visible as he had just exited the room.

"Is anything wrong? It's rare to see everyone coming here at this hour." Following the gaze of his fellow guild members, Roubaul noticed the unknown boy, his whisker marks catching his attention along the hideous and damaged orange jumpsuit. "Bring him to my office, I'll need to look for anything we may be missing of his condition…" turning to the girl he had been entrusted with, he could only smile softly, "Wendy, you should head back home to rest, surely it's been a long day?"

Feeling the attention of all the awake people on her, Wendy lowered her gaze and shook her head, "I want to help look over him, can I?"

Knowing he could never deny her, Roubaul just took the boy and went to his office, laying him on his bed and moving his chair to be at the side of the bed, knowing Wendy would want to be as close as possible to the blond. Starting to do a basic checkup on the boy, Wendy indeed went to the chair and sat, trying her best to stay awake.

A couple of yawns later, Roubaul confirmed the boy was alright, sans the few bumps on his head he healed. Sighing, he went to a small closet and took a couple of blankets, putting Wendy on the bed and covering her cute charge and the boy.

"Not even a week since that boy brought Wendy and already we got another newcomer… Nabura, seems this old body still has more to give for the future." He was not sure what it was about the boy, but he was unable to feel any eternano inside him and yet he knew there was power in him.

In all honesty, it worried him because in all his long life he had never felt anything similar, not the level of power but its origin and nature. And he had lived long enough to think nothing could baffle him like this. Sitting on the corner of the bed that was free, he took a meditative pose and closed his eyes, both to rest and revisit his memories to be sure he had not sensed any power similar to the boy's.

* * *

Feeling like he had just battled Madara, Maito Gai and all the Tailed Beasts together, Naruto slowly began to awaken, _'Feels… warm? Comfy too, don't remember my bed being so comfy…'_ slowly stretching his body for a few minutes, he finally took a sitting position and rubbed his eyes, opening them to face the day.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Naruto fell off the bed seconds after opening his eyes obviously.

We can be sure all of Cait Shelter was now awake.

"You need to be more considerate of others child, most enjoy their sleep." Leaving his meditative trance after such shout, Roubaul just stared curiously at the boy, "Are you perhaps a Dragon Slayer? That yell was definitely worthy of one of them." He sent a discrete glance at the small girl that was also awake and rubbing her ears from said yell, her attention suddenly focused on the other two occupants at the mention of her unique magic.

"Huh?" Naruto could only balk at the speaker, his eyes getting wider the more he stared._ 'Holy Ramen! His eyebrows fused with his beard!'_

A minute passed in silence, seeing Naruto was still stupefied and the others were just curious.

"Child?" Finally recovering, Naruto could only tilt his head in curiosity, the clothes -or lack of clothes- were too weird for him. Not every day one meets an old man wearing just brown pants, something resembling a giant cluster of feathers as a hat, even more feathers on the back of his waist, and two golden bracelets, one on each bicep of his arms. Even the mark on his forehead was peculiar, though not as eye-catching as his monstrous eyebrows, _'Gee, must be one of bushy brows ancestors or something… also, Dragon Slayer?'_

"What's up jiji? What's a dragon slayer?" still unnoticed by the blond, Wendy deflated at his question, seems hoping for such a lucky coincidence was too much.

"Nothing important if you're not one of them." Leaving the bed, he could only wonder how to proceed, "I think everyone here has many questions to ask, so maybe we should clean up and eat breakfast before anything else?"

"Sure, I'm starving!" Not sensing any danger from the weird old man, Naruto just shrugged and went to make himself presentable after being pointed by Roubaul on where he could bathe.

"Wendy?"

"H-Hai!" the young dragon slayer just patted her dress after leaving the bed before bowing to her Master and leaving for her home._ 'He didn't notice me…'_ She thought sadly, first time someone close to her age shows up and she didn't register on his mind at all! And she still had to apologize for all the bumps she caused while bringing him to her guild, how embarrassing.

* * *

Feeling better after a good shower and wearing clean clothes, Wendy walked towards the cat-shaped guild building, exchanging greetings with her guildmates. Noticing a small group gathered near the entrance of the guild, she inched closer to see what the commotion was.

Apparently the rest of her guild found really amusing how certain blond boy's jaw could be on the ground while he pointed at the guild building in shock. Gathering her courage, she decided to approach the boy and finally apologize.

"Ano…" feeling someone poking the arm he was not using to point at the cat-shaped building, Naruto broke from his stupor and glanced at where the poking came, a small girl with short blue hair and a dress with a blue and yellow wavy striped pattern seemed to be staring shyly at him, her brown eyes unable to look at his blue ones for some reason.

Seeing the boy was finally staring at her, even if he was blinking too much, she took a heavy breath, "I-I- I'm s-wah!"

"You're so cute chibi!" laughing, Naruto just grabbed the girl and started spinning her around to the laughter of all present, their laughter increasing at how their fellow guildmate got dizzy and her eyes were only spirals endlessly spinning while the blond just snuggled her.

From one of the windows that acted as eyes for the guild building, Roubaul just smiled warmly, any previous suspicion on the boy gone. He wanted to believe no one could fake such innocence and warm towards people they just met.

Watching as the blond carried the dizzy girl to the guild hall, Roubaul could only chuckle while going downstairs, watching such a shy and polite girl interact with a bright ball of energy as the boy seem to be should be amusing enough to make breakfast fun.

After breakfast, in which the blond had easily integrated with the rest of the guild laughing and joking while still showing a healthy appetite, Roubaul has used the time to figure out more of the boy. It warmed his heart how he tried to include Wendy in most of the things he was talking with the others seeing she was sitting at his side, doing more to make the girl feel at ease in the guild among her fellow members than she had during the whole week since she arrived. _'It seems he is just naturally warm and friendly to everyone he meets, and good at sensing how to help others if the smile Wendy is showing is a sign.'_ Roubaul decided it was time to finally get some answers. "So, might you start by telling us your name child?"

_'Child? Guess he is one of those old men that think everyone else is just a child compared to them.'_ Putting his plate on the table, he decided he might as well be courteous to him, free food was always nice, "Uzumaki Naruto jiji!"

"How curious, is your name Naruto then? Uzumaki sounds more like a surname… we normally introduce ourselves first by name and then surname." The guildmaster just cleared his throat and the rest of the guild kept silent, "My name is Roubaul, guild master of Cait Shelter, the place where you find yourself at the moment. Before anything else, do you remember anything before waking up? Wendy was the one who found you so I'm curious if you could explain anything about how she found you. Would you tell him about that Wendy?"

Finding herself the center of attention once again, Wendy just blushed slightly while staring at the blond boy, "Hai… yesterday, I was watching the stars on a hill nearby and all of a sudden there was the sound of a crash. When I went to the source of the crash I found you there Naruto-san… you seemed injured and from the crater you were in, it seemed as if you had fallen from the sky at a great speed." She lowered her head immediately, she had not mentioned the star shining and her wish fearing she had somehow caused Naruto to crash, as crazy as it sounded.

'_I crashed? Hmm…'_ closing his eyes and adopting a thinking pose, Naruto tried to concentrate and remember the last thing before waking here. _'Ok, I remember sealing the deal with the Shinigami back on Konoha and suddenly felt as if someone was breaking me apart… and then nothing. Weirdest sensation ever. Guess I was sent here after that, I'm still sore from this crashing I apparently was in.' _nodding to himself, he just started ruffling the bluenette's short hair.

"So you brought me here all on your own Wendy-chan?"

"H-Hai…" her blush increased at how the blond just added the suffix to her name so fast, _'He's really different from Jellal… but he seems to be a nice person.'_

"Thanks, you're strong for such an adorable little girl!" lifting the girl and putting her on his lap, he hugged her while laughing, she was like a mini Hinata acting all shy! Good thing she was not fainting though.

Meanwhile, Roubaul kept his discrete observation of the blond, he was curious on how much the boy knew of his own arrival, seeing he had been thinking for a while and there was that powerful presence he seemed to exude without noticing. While he was sure the blond was not a danger to his young charge on his own, he needed to know if he would be a danger by staying_, 'From how he appeared, he might be chased by someone, or sent here by mysterious means. Maybe from a faraway land seeing I still can't figure out what this power of his is.'_ Seeing how Wendy seemed to be slowly easing into the blond's embrace, he decided some teasing was good for her, "Not only that, she was the one who healed you with her magic, such a strong little mage she is, right?"

"Mage?! You mean she can use magic?!" quickly standing while still hugging her, Naruto settled her on the ground before inspecting her excitedly, poking her everywhere as if that would trigger something, but only helping in turning her red like a tomato, "Ne ne, can you do some of your magic now Wendy-chan?" all the Cait Shelter members could only laugh at how childish he was.

Surprised at how excited he seemed to be just to watch her magic, Wendy regained some control of her shyness and tried to focus, the magic seal appearing for a brief moment before leaving her hands with the soft green glow of her healing magic.

"It's not much but-" anything else she was going to say was lost as she saw how Naruto's eyes practically started sparkling from awe.

"That's so COOL! It looks like Sakura-chan's healing jutsu, and no hand signs! You must be some kind of prodigy Wendy-chan! And just as good seeing I'm as good as new!" if Naruto kept going with the praise, Wendy might as well end permanently red from so much blushing.

"Hand signs? Jutsu? What do you mean Naruto-kun?" at Roubaul's question, Naruto stopped embarrassing the bluenette and remembered this was not home. Might as well explain, "Jutsu is the name for the techniques we can do at home, and hand signs are exactly what they sound, they help us focus and harness energy properly for our jutsu." He then went on to explain a bit about how jutsu and chakra worked, without mentioning he was another dimension, just a faraway land where he had fought a war and now just wanted to explore the world.

"A war? But you seemed too young for that child."

"Eh?" tilting his head he could only stared confused at the guild master, not getting his point. Noticing the boy was genuinely confused, Roubaul pointed to one of his guild members, a homely looking woman who seem to wear clothes in the same style of Roubaul, who just smiled and took out a pocket mirror, passing it to the blond.

"WHA- but, but… AAAHHHHHHHH" and Naruto just ran outside yelling like crazy, leaving a confused guild to slowly follow. _'I-It can't be… that was me when I was a genin!'_ channeling as much chakra as he could on his legs, he propelled himself to the sky, reaching in one leap one of the nearby rocky formations… crashing directly on it from an apparent miscalculation on his jump.

The few that followed fast enough to watch his jump, could only sweatdrop and gape simultaneously at the blond's reaction. "That kid is crazy strong… but kinda dumb don't you think?"

And while Roubaul might not want to just say that, no one could stop him from letting one of his guildmates from voicing his thoughts.

Slowly recovering from his bad leap, Naruto could only groan and hold a bloody nose, _'I know I pumped enough chakra to reach the top…'_ to his ever increasing horror, he suddenly understood what this could mean.

'_My chakra control… all those months with sensei…'_ doing another series of leaps, each time pumping more than he thought was needed to compensate for his lack of control, he reached the tallest point he could and glared at the sky. **"YOU DAMN SACK OF BONES! YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?! JUST WAIT TILL I GET YOU 'TTEBAYO!" **Knowing he was powerless to do anything else, Naruto just went deeper into the rocky area to vent his anger in any way he could, making him 12 years again out of spite was just a dick move in his opinion.

On another plane of existence, the Shinigami stopped working on his duties and just smirked, feeling as if somewhere, justice was being served to someone who annoyed him by his hand, life is good.

Being the only good sensor on the guild, Roubaul just balked at the continuous spikes of energy and figured they should leave the blond alone for the time being.

"M-Master… will Naruto-san be alright?"

Glancing at the worried bluenette, the guild master could only sigh and ruffle her hair a bit, "Don't worry Wendy, whatever may ail Naruto-kun, he went out of his way to avoid damaging any of us or the guild, so he will surely return when he feels better." The small girl could only hope the nice boy who fell from the sky was fine, he was really warm to everyone so far, if a tad bit too teasing with her.

* * *

It wouldn't be until near nightfall that Naruto returned to the guild hall of Cait Shelter, his clothes even more torn and bloody than before, barely standing with a satisfied grin on his face. "Sorry everyone… I needed that." One hand on his neck and chuckling, Naruto just stared at the few members of the guild that were still around.

"Naruto-san!" followed by two women, who seemed appalled at the state of the blond, Wendy Marvell just balked at the state the Uzumaki was, "Are you alright Naruto-san? Did you get attacked? Was it an accident? Was-" a bonk to her head stop her from fussing over her newest possible friend, said blond just smiling while shaking his head.

"No Naruto-san coming from you Wendy-chan, either Naruto or Naruto-kun unless you like getting a bonk to the head every time you use –san ok?" winking at the bluenette, he continued, "and nothing happened, all this was from me going wild for a bit, then fainting from exhaustion."

"Naruto-kun, you need to apologize, Wendy here was worrying all day about you, did you know?" one of the women following Wendy smiled mischievously at how the Uzumaki seemed to blush a bit, scratching his cheek obviously embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm so used to just fainting from training that I never think about others worrying hehe…"

While the dragon slayer started healing him, Naruto just glanced at the office where he knew Roubaul let him sleep, "Is jiji around? I need to talk to him about some things… it's kinda important."

"He is already expecting you in his office, not sure how he knew you were coming." The same woman smiled seeing Wendy was nearly done with healing the boy, "Name's Lebira by the way."

Smiling and once again ruffling the bluenette's hair, Naruto gave her a nod in thanks, "Nice to meet ya! Maybe we can have dinner all together after I talk with him?" not waiting for a reply, he went ahead to the office and entered.

Seeing Wendy's confused gaze, Lebira smiled at the young girl, "Don't think too much of it Wendy, boys will be boys."

* * *

"So child, might explain what happened?"

Gulping at the tone from the old man, Naruto sighed, "I discovered… something unpleasant." A short silence followed, where both stared at the other without blinking. After a minute, Naruto smiled, "I know this will sound really weird, but I'm 18 years old… I got angry because it seems someone played me a nasty prank when I arrived to this place."

Blinking twice, Roubaul could see he was not lying from the lack of tells, so that left a pretty obvious question, "You don't look older than 9, maybe 10 to me… and you only noticed when you saw yourself in the mirror?" at Naruto's nod, Roubaul raised one eyebrow, slightly annoyed at how the blond seemed to stare at his eyebrow as if it was a novelty, "how could you not notice?!"

"First, I'm 12 you old geezer! Second, I just thought everyone was really tall alright?! Except you, you're an old midget."

Roubaul just face faulted. He just knew this was going to be a common occurrence with the blond around.

After dinner, the few members still lounging in the guild hall gathered when Roubaul jumped on the table and cleared his throat, "It will please some of you to know that Naruto-kun decided to stay with us for a while, he explained he comes from a distant land and so he wishes to live with us to understand a bit more about Fiore's culture, and us of course!"

Wendy couldn't contain the excitement the news brought her and lunged at the blond, who just caught her and started spinning around with her, while her guild mates only smiled at the duo.

* * *

A month later, Wendy Marvell couldn't be happier.

Naruto staying had somehow made Cait Shelter a much brighter place, the blond always making time to play with her and allowing her to choose what they could do most of the time, he was always awake no matter what time she tried to start her day, though he never seemed to be around before breakfast. She had missed having someone around her age to play with, Jellal being the only other one who indulged her that way. Though she disliked the many times Naruto bonked her for using –san and how he tended to either tease her lots or just treat her like a plushie he could snuggle.

While the week she arrived at the guild everyone had been nice and kind to her, the lack of people her age made difficult for her to open up the way Naruto had helped her do, she now felt closer to many of the women of the guild who were just so nice to her, mothering her in a way that reminded Wendy of her foster mother.

And while the men were just as nice, she still felt a bit shy around them unless Naruto was around. Mostly because he was constantly messing with the men and engaging on anything he deemed as fun, mainly pranks. That way, Wendy never felt like the center of attention, just as part of the guild.

Ironically, the pranks started after one day after dinner, everyone discovered Naruto was unable to read their language. It was pretty funny because he had no issues speaking it but the moment he stared at the letter he called bull, saying there was no way those were letters and that they shouldn't play pranks on him.

When he just saw the whole guild, even Wendy laughing at his misfortune, he just sulked and pouted. Knowing he was not joking from his expression, the innocent girl offered him her help in learning to read, seeing she had learned before her foster mother left her.

The teasing he got from that innocent offer, made Naruto swear vengeance on his newest friends and from there the pranking started.

Right now, the small girl was heading to Lebira's home, both her and her sister Menori were going to helpwith baking a cake to celebrate a month of hers and Naruto's addition to the guild, the little girl deciding to wait a week so they could celebrate at the same time. Even better, the Master had finally agreed with her into letting the blond join Cait Shelter! Nothing could ruin the day!

'_Naruto-kun will be so surprised!'_

* * *

One month.

He could hardly believe a month had passed so fast. Even if he missed the Elemental Nations and Konoha badly, he had to admit this Earthland was a pretty cool place. It also helped he had no reminders of Konoha, except his personalized storage scroll, the only thing that survived the travel. Konoha was a sore topic for the blond, for various reasons.

Cait Shelter was a really peaceful and calm guild, and it seemed most of Fiore was the same from what he had learned from Roubaul. After learning to read with the help of Wendy, embarrassing as it was, the old man had helped him with books to learn more of this nation and how things like magic and guilds worked.

The month had also allowed him to get his chakra control to at least high genin levels, mainly thanks to his Kage Bunshin spam and the complete chakra control repertoire. Tree and water walking had been easy to relearn, leaf balancing a tad harder, especially when he started increasing the number of leaves.

Being an early riser after training with Jiraiya and the Second, he had taken to use the morning to train his body back into respectable shape and after breakfast, just having fun. Now that his chakra control was on a level he deemed good enough, he would start relearning some of the basic jutsu and his signature moves. Unfortunately his taijutsu needed a lot of work, trying to not overextend and use the proper reach with his smaller frame was a pain in the ass.

_'Things should speed up after the first seals I'm trying to work with are done though… '_

Knowing today Wendy wanted to be alone with Lebira and Menori, he decided to just use the whole day working on his calligraphy, which he had not worked on ever since arriving. Making 5 shadow clones for that tenuous task, he decided to work on all the katas he knew on his own to recover the muscle memory and reaction time he had lost.

* * *

He had to admit, for such a tranquil community, Cait Shelter knew how to throw a party.

After returning to the guild hall for dinner, the blond had been surprised by everyone being there to celebrate a month of his stay with them. It seemed so irrelevant to him with the lifestyle he had, but when Wendy smiled so shyly at him asking him if he liked her idea, he had no heart to deny her. Her levels of cuteness were just a cheat.

The moment she told him she also waited a week so they could celebrate together made him feel tears threatening to come out. Good thing he was too manly to let them out.

"And there's still another surprise for you Naruto-kun!"

"Really? You're spoiling me too much Wendy-chan. So, what is it?"

"This one comes from me Naruto." Glancing at the guild master, who had been drinking with the rest of them curiously, he saw the old man gesture to Lebira towards a corner, the woman returning with a small box.

"Well, this month has been so lively that I came to a decision. Everyone seems to agree on this, so…" taking the box from her hands, he opened it to reveal a stamp. "Naruto Uzumaki, will you join us as a member of Cait Shelter?"

'_For real?!'_ Naruto was baffled, from what he had talked with Roubaul so far, he knew the Nirvit were a really reclusive community, and as such the only outsider they had accepted into their guild so far had been Wendy. In all the month he had seen only two people that were not part of the Nirvit tribe around, and they had left just an hour after visiting.

"Jiji… I'm honored about this…" the blond could only avoid Roubaul's gaze and could feel the atmosphere fill with tension from everyone waiting on his reply, rubbing the back if his neck nervously, "but I'll have to refuse your offer."

The whole guild could only gape. Roubaul face faulted. This boy never did as one would expect.

* * *

**I think that went well, don't you agree?**

**To be honest, while the reviews were not as much as I wanted, seeing so many review and/or follows for a story coming is cool. Thanks for the praise everyone!**

**To tackle some concerns, when I refer to harem/multi I mostly mean that many of the girls may end liking Naruto, with him being probably too dense to notice like in canon. There's a chance it may chance, depending on the following:**

**One of the hints I left involves a chance of a Naturo girl being in the pairing, which would change a bit about I would have to portray him. That possibility however, depend on whether the readers want that to happen so review! (You can try to guess the girl, which is easy from the hints on the first chapter). Regardless of the outcome of that pseudo poll, there is something that will affect the story later on, like really later on.**

**Another point I think merit mention is Erza. I actually agree with her being overused when it comes to being paired with Naruto, but I'm not sure if she could end in my story. Normally those things depends on how I think the story will flow and so far, I can't guarantee anything. On the other hand, might as well admit that if I'm biased for some of the Fairy Tail girls, Levy, Ultear and Mira are top choices. Cana, Kinana, Laki, Kagura and Juvia are characters that would be fun to tackle too.**

**Wendy will be obviously not exactly canon, seeing it's impossible for Naruto to not influence her. I might also change something regarding her dragon slayer status, seeing it has always bothered me. You're welcome to try to guess what I'm talking about ;)**

**On Naruto saying he cheated, it goes with him. Does anyone think Naruto would count as a win using the Shiki Fujin? He always tries to either empathize with his enemies to change them or uses his fists to talk (Also because Madara is broken imo). He was de-aged for various reasons, mainly so he won't just stomp all his opposition when we reach any battling.**

**eniox27 raised a good point about his departure being too light hearted. As a minor spoiler, this related to the talk I refer with the Second which might appear later :P**

**And after such a large AN, I just ask the readers to help me a bit with one big decision going forwards and also some little help:**

**- I think Sage Mode is enough to cover most of canon pre-Tenrou Island as far as powerups go for Naruto. But post timeskip, what would be better, Tailed Beast Chakra Mode or another thing? (Either has its twists, seeing you all read Kurama is not inside him anymore :P )**

**- Name for a couple of Cait Shelter OCs and personality profiles, unless the anime has some (named) members besides Carla, Wendy and Roubaul to use.**

**- Maybe some help with a better title and summary for the fic? XD**


	3. Chapter 3

**Not as long as the previous chapters and maybe feels a bit like filler for some, but done with another chapter!**

**Previous disclaimer still applies if I mention it right?**

* * *

Surprisingly, no one made a sound at Naruto's refusal to join their guild. At first, he thought he would be getting confusion and questions from the Nirvit members, but after a minute of gaping everyone seemed to be focusing on Wendy. He knew this was the girl's idea so he hoped she wouldn't get too upset. While the little girl had been a sweetheart so far, he was too used to being the target of feminine fury to dismiss the possibility, so he would approach cautiously, as if facing a terrifying beast that would end him if he was not careful.

Said girl was currently trying to avoid everyone's eyes focusing on the floor, a mix of sadness and confusion battling in her mind, why would he refuse to join? He had liked the guild didn't he? She had seen him have fun with everyone, and he seemed at ease overall. She would have noticed if something had been unsettling or bothering him, they were together all the time! _'Maybe it's me? I've been a bit too clingy…'_

"Wendy-chan…?" before her mind went too far in finding ways to blame herself, the voice of the blond brought her back to reality.

Watching the little girl stare at him with an expression that could only be compared to a kicked puppy, Naruto could only chuckle. _'Seriously… this girl is just a cheat.'_ This had been a common occurrence during his stay at Cait Shelter. Due Wendy being naturally clumsy and a bit ditzy, she would always find a way to blame herself for ANYTHING that she thought he might dislike or her clumsiness would cause, and look at him with those eyes asking forgiveness. Worse was they didn't lose its impact at all, so he always ended spoiling the bluenette to brighten her mood.

Unfortunately, he had a feeling this wouldn't be solved so easily seeing her eyes were moistening. Putting a small smile on his face, he grabbed her hand and gave her a small squeeze. Knowing he had her full attention, he started leading her out of the guild hall and towards the hill where they first _met, _even if he was unconscious at the time.

**Play Grandma – NieR OST**

Reaching the hill after a quiet walk, they passed the crater that was still there. It was actually deeper than expected, and the grass was not yet showing signs of growing back. Quite the mark he left on the landscape for sure. Finding a good spot to sit, he lifted Wendy with both arms before sitting down while hugging her gently, her small frame fitting on his legs quite comfortably. Without watching her reaction he decided to stargaze for a few minutes. Even upset he was sure she would be embarrassed for a few minutes before relaxing in his embrace.

The young dragon slayer was indeed embarrassed. While she liked hugs as much as any little girl would, she would always end with a healthy blush whenever Naruto showed any kind of affection to her, he seemed to like hugging a lot more than boys were supposed to. '_Maybe a bit too much.'_

When she had arrived at the guild and she had asked why Jellal was not into hugging or showing affection from what their month travelling together showed, Lebira and the others had smiled and told her boys at his age were supposed to think girls were gross and hugging detracted from their manliness or coolness, depending on who she asked. She had always giggled at their responses, thinking it was silly seeing hugs were nice.

Naruto seemed to break the mold, taking to smothering her with affection any time he had the chance to, which was one of the reasons the women of the guild liked the boy so much. They had known Wendy was a timid girl and watching her get swept by the blond was just so adorable! Seeing the boy being so open with his emotions was refreshing from how most men acted all the time, and endearing if anyone asked them.

The answer to why the blond was so liberal with hugs was simple. During his childhood, he had been mostly deprived from any type of affection at the orphanage due his jinchūriki status, the visits from the Sandaime Hokage being few and always brief. Even after getting his own apartment, only the Ichiraku family would be added to the small list that showed care for the blond. Ayame had been so taken with the little blond back then that she had taken to hug him any time he decided to eat ramen at their stand.

He had never felt so warm and protected before.

So for an orphan like Naruto, seeing the shy girl with no parents, issues with trying to open up to others and eyes that showed the loneliness his own had possessed for such a long time, it was a no brainer. He never wanted others to have a childhood similar to his own.

Leaving her musing over her friend for another time, she felt calm enough to finally start their talk. Glancing upwards, Wendy could only smile softly at his soft smile as he stargazed, "Naruto-kun?"

"Hoh… you're getting faster at recovering from your blushing Wendy. Better now?" his wink after that statement just got him a slight blush in response, so maybe she was getting better at enduring his teasing. He would take it up some notches later.

"Why did you reject Cait Shelter?"

Blinking at her bluntness, he was pleased at the seriousness she was showing in her eyes, "I'm not good at making my feelings match my words, would you let me try? I swear I do this because I care about you guys. Just wait till I'm done for any questions ok?"

Glad his friend just nodded and kept her whole focus on him, he stood and allowed her to sit on her own, before taking a few steps and going back to stargazing, "I think it's obvious by now, but my _unique_ arrival to this place has to do with all this." Knowing he was going to go on a long talk, he sighed while stretching a bit, "My home… I guess you could say it's a really far away land, one that until recently was engulfed in constant conflict and war. I was on the thick of it, and I'm proud to be one of the reasons it ended, I think peace will last a long time with the friends I left there." He wanted to believe all the bonds he had made and helped nurture between all the villages and its ninja would endure, they had to.

"During the final battle we took a risk and it cost me. I had to leave my home to never see it again. And that led me to Fiore and you guys. I really want to join the guild after getting to know all of you, but I also had a lot of time to think this month." While he had skipped a lot of important details, he wanted to be as honest as he could with his friend. He just didn't knew how much he could safely reveal.

"The… power that sent me here is not so whimsical as to drop me here just to enjoy peace and have fun. I'm sure there is some reason for all of this, and even if I hate it I have to find out. I need to do so many things… and I'm not even sure if I am strong enough to tackle all head on and just hope for the best, I need to know more, to know if just getting my full power back is enough or if I need to go further. The one from the war and the current me are too different, age for starters. I don't know how strong I am compared to him."

And that was his real worry, he knew nothing of how powerful people were on this dimension, "Knowing my luck, I'll end facing all kind of crazy powerful people, and I want to know I'm strong enough to protect all of you before anything else. You have been so kind to me, and I don't want you to get involved in anything dangerous just for being allied to me."

Knowing he had to face her for the next part, he tried to avoid being distracted by her eyes, he knew he couldn't handle tears from any girl he knew, "That's why I'll be leaving Cait Shelter in a few days."

Before Wendy could say anything, his eyes' froze her. Once again, she was reminded of Jellal and how similar both of his friends were. The drive and determination that could be easily seen in Naruto's eyes mirrored Jellal's, all the feelings she could see reflected on his cerulean orbs a stark reminder of the day Jellal left.

A passion to do what's right and protect what they cherish that would not be extinguished.

The sorrow and guilt from leaving her behind

The regret of not being able to be the family she so desperately wanted.

A burning will to become stronger.

'_It's so unfair…'_ how could she deny him now? Something in his eyes told her that if she asked he would stay, and yet she knew that would hurt him too. He would leave just like Jellal and ask her to be safe and protected in the guild.

Watching her eyes settle on a sad and defeated expression, the blond approached and raised her chin with care, "Oi, it's not as I'm gonna disappear and never return ya know?" seeing the confusion on her face he actually chuckled, "You seriously thought I was never coming back? I like this place too much already for that. Besides… I'll eventually have to train you so we can travel together, so there's no way I would leave such an adorable girl alone for long."

Wendy definitely broke her own personal record when it came to executing a flying glomp on Naruto that day, he had barely sensed her moving!

And for all the similarities between her dear friends, Wendy Marvell couldn't be happier they were so different too. They ended falling asleep after staying on that hill watching the stars.

* * *

The next day, Wendy woke up and tried to stretch a bit, only to feel as if she was wrapped in something that confined her movements. She couldn't even rub her eyes from the way she was wrapped! From her constant movement, she ended rolling downhill and ended with a nasty bump on her head, hearing nearby laughter.

"Naruto-kun!" doing her best to pout indignantly at her blond companion, Wendy lost any drowsiness she was feeling at seeing her friend stand on the water of a small pond. Standing. ON WATER! As if she needed a shock to her system so soon in the morning.

Watching the blond skip around on the water while approaching her, she just knew he was aware of her shock and was just taunting her because he could. Meanie.

"Hiya! Had a good sleep Wendy-chan?" watching her pout while slowly pulling out the puppy dog eyes, he just smiled and slowly unraveled her wrappings that had made her look like a ball with a head. To her surprise, it was just a red coat with short sleeves, on the bottom part it had a black flame pattern with some burnt orange tones. It looked too big for it to be Naruto's, maybe it would fit in a couple of years? It seemed really well made, and now that she could feel the material it was quite soft and comfy.

After Naruto took it from her arms, he just seemed to do a spin on his own axis, and the next thing she knew the coat was no longer in his hands, "Ta da! Just like magic right?" his wink was just infuriating by this point. Both knew he had no idea that magic was real before his arrival so there was no way that counted as magic. From his cheeky smile she knew he wouldn't tell her any of his tricks in the near future.

"So, any plans for today Wendy-chan?"

"If you had joined, maybe. Now you ruined my day too mister!" Glad she was not really upset anymore, and kinda surprised she could be so mature already, he just ruffled her hair while jumping around the place.

"Wanna train a bit after breakfast then?"

Not giving her time to reply, Naruto just kept jumping around towards the guild, the small dragon slayer trying to catch up and curious what the wild blond passed as training.

* * *

A few hours later, Naruto had taken her towards the area where he had disappeared the day he had vented his anger. It looked like an arid valley with many craters around, and most of the formations looked recent. The bluenette gulped at what that could mean knowing her friend had caused this, maybe training was not such a good idea…

Watching the Uzumaki stretch and limber for a few minutes, she could only imagine what kind of training he might have planned.

"Hm… have you trained before Wendy?" quickly receiving a shake of her head, it was obvious he had forgotten this was not the Elemental Nations, so maybe expecting a 5-6 year old to have any training experience was too much. _'While she certainly had skill with her healing magic I guess there's no way she's an Itachi in the making or a traning nut like me hehe…'_

Not being a deep thinker by nature, winging it sounded like a plan for Naruto, "Let's try this! Your goal for today is trying to catch me, any way you can! The only thing I will be doing is dodging, so it should be easy and fun!" Knowing this would be just playing around until she got tired, he decided testing her endurance and having fun was as good as it was going to get today.

Relieved that his idea for training was not horrible torture as she had feared at first, Wendy started to do some light stretches while thinking how to achieve her goal of the day, glad she had decided to wear her shorts and white shirt she used while travelling with Jellal instead of her wavy dresses. _'Is there a way to catch him? He is faster, has more stamina and obviously experience… I have no advantages over him… unless…'_ seeing it was the best if not only plan of action that made any sense. Wendy decided to just lunge at Naruto trying to use the element of surprise.

Happy she was all for trying, Naruto easily evaded her lunge while trying to catch her from the back of her shirt, only to quickly drop her seeing the moment he had done the grab she had taken advantage of being so close to the ground to bounce and twist her body into a position where she could grab his arm with her whole frame in a bear hug.

Aware she had been so close, Wendy just lunged once again now that she had confirmed he really was a softie. Lunging again, this time she just felt him pushing her leg with his own so that she never fell down, actually standing after her jump surprised, waving her arms trying to not lose her balance.

"Under all that cuteness you're really crafty ya know? Taking advantage of me being such a nice guy…" playfully making a gesture for her to keep trying, Naruto just jumped high enough to completely evade her next lunge, while grabbing her from her arms and just throwing her upwards without exerting any force, letting the impulse of her lunge do his job.

After she dropped safely on the ground huffing at the Uzumaki, the following hours consisted of Naruto practically acting like a mix between an acrobat and a monkey, doing all kinds of jumps, flips, handstands and dodges while manipulating Wendy's flow and balance with grabs, pushes and pokes so the young dragon slayer never hurt herself from her increasingly wilder lunges and jumps, taking advantage of her confidence on the blond to not let her hurt herself.

At sundown, Naruto was carrying her on his shoulders back to the guild, chuckling at her current state. She was like a sack of potatoes, just laying on him with a content smile despite being unable to move.

"Naruto-kun? Can we do this tomorrow too?"

"Sure! I had lots of fun watching you jump like a rabbit chasing a carrot."

"Just one question, why did we travel all the way to that valley if we barely moved from where we started?"

"…"

"Naruto-kun had no idea what he was doing from the start right?"

"…"

"Naruto-kun?"

"…Wendy-chan is so mean…" doing her best to hug the blond's forehead with her tired arms, she snuggled happily on his hair while he felt a proverbial raincloud following him all the way to the guild building, he could swear it was just raining on his head somehow and not on her little friend too!

* * *

As the days passed, Wendy had tried her best to convince her friend to stay a few more days, and had even enlisted the help of the rest of the guild to do so. Their only success was when they promised him anything he could eat, though he sulked for the extra day about the lack of ramen on the guild.

In her efforts to pass as much time as possible with the blond, she had discovered why she never managed to find him on the mornings. Watching the blond train had reaffirmed her initial belief on his training methods. He was crazy, the sheer torture he put himself daily would astonish and drive others to madness.

Doing pushups? Sounds normal.

Doing it while somehow making stones stick to your body adding to the weight and messing with one's body balance? Not so normal.

Doing it one handed, adding clapping at random intervals and sometimes trying to just use two or one fingers for the pushups? Crazyyyyy.

After discovering her when he was done with his routine, he had just patted her shoulder while she fixed her fallen jaw from the sheer ridiculousness a 12 year old would go to train, telling her she should prepare for when it was her turn.

That day Wendy had skipped their daily playing and just cowered behind Lebira all day while the Uzumaki cackled like a maniac.

When the last night arrived, the whole guild gathered and prepared a feast for the blond, Lebira delighted on how the boy annihilated the ramen she had prepared for him. The men had actually insulted the dish which ended on the first brawl on Cait Shelter where all the men were defeated by a child. Even Roubaul had ended with a black eye, some bumps on his head and his eyebrows and beard were no more. The blond had actually breathed fire at him in the name of the holy ramen, the sheer ridiculousness of the statement dulled his reaction and ended burnt.

Menori and Lebira had ambushed him after everything was calm again and handed him a huge blanket that was wrapping something. They had told him it was a bunch of clothes all the women had helped sew and some hand downs from the men. Apparently using only 2 sets of clothes during more than a month was not the norm, the blanket was for the cold nights they were sure he would end sleeping in the wild. Menori had ruffled his head and winked mysteriously at him, telling him that Wendy had helped design some of the stuff on the blanket.

Exiting the guild building, he was surprised to see Wendy was waiting for him, the bluenette not looking at him and just taking his hand, leading him to her home.

Curious, he just let her lead him to her bed, where they both sat in silence for a while.

"Will you… stay with me… tonight…?" barely a whisper, he could tell it was taking all her courage asking something that was so simple for him to do, yet she was both shy and afraid of his response.

Smiling softly, he carried her on one arm while fixing her bed so he could sit while relaxing on the headboard with a pillow on his back, using the other pillow so Wendy's head was comfortable in his embrace, laying his own head on hers.

"I would gladly do this for my dearest friend on the guild anytime she asked, so next time don't worry about it." closing his eyes, he went to sleep knowing a minor discomfort like this was worth making her happy

For the first time ever since Grandeeney disappeared, Wendy sleep contentedly surrounded by warm and care, pleasant dreams of a life with both his friends and her foster mother driving any nightmares away.

* * *

**Play Where the Wind and Feathers Return – Radiant Historia OST**

Feeling the breeze, Naruto just closed his eyes while watching the landscape, Wendy currently on his shoulders. Once again on the hill where they met.

"Will you let me go now?" apparently, Wendy had a really strong grip. After breakfast, she had not let go, she wanted to come here and so had been particularly stubborn about leaving his shoulders, he was actually amused when he had decided to leap as high as he could on the way here and do all kinds on pirouettes and acrobatics to test her grip on the way and ended with a dizzy girl that somehow was strangling him with her grip.

"I don't wanna!" Climbing on his head so she could stare at him upside down, she tried her best pout and puppy eyes to just stare at his deadpan expression.

"Wendy…"

Tightening her grip on his head, tears threatened to spill from her eyes, "…Do you promise you'll come back… home?"

Grinning foxily, he just did Gai's good guy pose, "I promise 'ttebayo! And I never break my promises!" feeling her grip finally slacken, he crouched so the girl could hop to the ground.

"So… how long will you be gone?"

"Hm… until I run out of food, jewels or land to explore?" staring at her cute glare, he only laughed while shrugging, "...maybe a month or two? I'm too whimsical to stay on schedule anyways."

Putting some distance between them to stand on the pond that was nearby, he flexed as much chakra as he could and focused it on his left leg, "Besides, the longer I'm gone the more presents I'll be getting for my kawaii imouto when I return!" doing a small hop and a spin to put more force into it, he ended axe kicking the pond, causing a huge torrent of water to go upwards. Immediately using water walking to run along the torrent, he reached the apex of the splash and channeled enough chakra for a massive jump, his figure disappearing on the sky while he laughed like crazy.

The blond was never one to leave quietly.

Following his figure, Wendy could only smile after getting over the shock of his last words. "I'll be waiting… Naruto-niisan!" getting a small rock hitting her forehead, she could only glance stupefied at where she saw him last in the sky, _'Mou! Where did that come from?'_

On a hidden spot, a shadow clone smirked at the girl's confusion before dispelling.

* * *

**Phew, hopefully the next chapters will have more action now that we are moving on from a slow start. Wish it was longer and had better execution and flow though.**

**Only one guess at who the Naruto girl could be, so should I take that as the readers no wanting any Naruto girl at all? Good thing there's a backup plan so that the decision doesn't affect the flow and hints so far ;)**

**For the timeskip powerup, I was leaning towards Tailed Beast Chakra Mode. And yep, already had figured out how to make it work, lotsa loopholes in the Naruto canon for that.**

**For pairings, I'll just let the story decide on its own. It's not as if it will be integral to the plot hopefully :P**

**When it comes to Naruto's personality so far (and being so dense) I would say it's a mix of clash between physical and mental age, Naruto wanting to enjoy his second chance at a semi-normal childhood and his canon personality before graduation. Imo, he was really that dense and dumb at times.**

**Challenge on profile is still waiting for a brave one :P Keep reviewing with your opinions to what I've asked so far btw, it's the easiest way I can indirectly ask for reviews without being so shameless about it XD**


	4. Chapter 4

**Not much to say here besides the disclaimer, so hope you still remember it from the other chapter as it still applies here.**

* * *

Now finally on the road, Naruto could only grin like an idiot while watching the sky. He had already travelled for an hour and fully entered the mountain range. He had decided to completely ignore Roubaul's suggestion to travel south towards Clover Town on the grounds it sounded boring. A tranquil walk versus a dangerous mountain range trip so he can reach either Shirotsume Town or Blue Pegasus? Hah! As if the choice could be easier.

Currently on the top of the highest part of the whole range, Naruto shivered from the cold, "Well, no one should be around these parts at least…" doing his signature hand sign, 30 shadow clones puffed into existence.

"Okay guys! We should use this week to get Henge, Kawarimi and the Kage Bunshin to the level we had before. No hand signs for the first two, and we need to eliminate the puff and smoke from the Kage Bunshin for at least 5 clones at the same time." Knowing by now his clones would do the job without any _major_ issues, he decided to explore the area, both to keep himself on the move and avoid the cold and natural curiosity. Everyone knows there was always something interesting in any region that was hard to access. Maybe some big treasure if his luck was as good as usual!

'_Then again, it's __**my**__ luck we're talking about… so might as well prepare for a big fight before said treasure and lots of bang to it hehe' _rubbing his nose with one finger, he pumped chakra to his feet for a big jump, and when he reached the apex of the jump faced the ground, going through the Tiger, Ox, Dog, Rabbit and Snake hand signs at a quick pace, _"__Fūton: Daitoppa! (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)__"_ letting the gust of wind flow, he directed it downwards to cover as much of the area as possible, causing the snow covering the mountain peaks to go upwards at high speeds. Smaller blasts of wind were used to both keep himself afloat and broaden the area affected by the technique.

When he reached the ground, he actually dropped to his knees from the exertion of the multiple wind blasts and shadow clone spam, "Such a waste of chakra, what a pain in the ass." Still way better than when he was a genin, but he had gotten too used to having high jonin level control after training with Tobirama-ossan.

Taking a few deep breaths, he felt his chakra slowly replenish and started to look for anything. _'Nothing? Weird.'_ Despite the falling snow from his multiple bursts of win, it seemed this part of the mountain was clean. "Oh well, still got lots of peak to clean."

It wouldn't be until he covered at least half of the mountain range that he finally found a huge entrance that had been previously caved in by the snow, "Heh, this is finally getting fun!" quickly forgetting he was practically without chakra, Naruto let his excitement guide him, walking towards the cave's entrance without any rush, experience telling him if there was an incoming battle, it would either rush at him from the start or lie in the deepest part of the cave. He was betting on the latter, seeing the cave was sealed until a few minutes ago.

Just after entering the cave, he could see the darkness inside the cave slowly receding as he started walking inside. Little by little, he could see the cave light up in different colors and its light gradually expanding, "Woah… nice!" a few minutes later he noticed how the whole cave seemed to be covered on all sides with crystals of all sizes and colors, each acting as a light source whenever he approached them, the moment he put distance said light dimming until darkness returned to that part of the cave. He noticed the entrance of the cave never fully lost its brightness though, just the potency of the light.

Wanting to test it out, he used his speed to move all around the cave, watching how the flares of light seem to follow him and each was brighter than before. Taking it up a notch, he started going deeper into the cave bouncing on each crystal and increasing his speed, the whole cave starting to become a lightshow of dazzling colors that mixed beautifully, none staying alight too long seeing he was not putting any chakra on his jumps despite his fast recovery rate.

"Definitely taking Wendy here next time, this place's awesome!" if he would have bothered with the details, he would have noticed that the moment he started to pump chakra in his excitement each bounce, the longer the crystal stayed alight.

He would also have noticed that the cave have many divergent paths, and noise could be heard from some of them.

* * *

**Play Slipstream - Yuki Kajiura**

"I didn't knew a mountain could hide such a huge place!" after an hour on the cave, Naruto finally reached what seemed to be a huge area that he assumed was the end of the cave. The whole area seemed to be as covered by crystals as the rest of the cave, and currently was fully illuminated.

"So… where's the loot? There has to be some loot after all this!" Honestly, it's an unwritten rule of adventuring, huge sealed cave equals treasure!

The growls and sounds of multiples footsteps nearing him reminded him of the usual caveat, big danger before awesome looting.

Getting ready for a good fight, he was freaked out when he saw the source of all the noise. The closest thing he could compared them to would be gorillas, but with mostly white fur and funny cone-shaped heads, "Are those yetis?" he could picture around 40 or 50 of them, with at least 3 of them being way bigger compared to the rest and looking plenty strong. Later on he would learn those were called Vulcans.

"**ENEMY! CRUSH! PROTECT!" **confused at the last word he wanted to stop them, but all Vulcans besides the big three rushed at him. Jumping back, he dodged an incoming fist crashing on the spot where he had been seconds ago at saw the crater left behind, immediately dodging more punches and lunges at his direction with a backflip. The moment he landed and changed directions to do a kick, he was dogpiled by another group of Vulcans. Doing a quick twist and rotation with his arm, he punched upwards and sent them flying, only to see ANOTHER pack ready to keep on stomping him. Pushing himself upwards with a handstand, he rotated on his own axis with his hands while spinning his legs to kick them away, quickly leaping to the ceiling, sticking to one of crystals that now was shining brightly enough to act as a beacon for the Vulcans and blind him a bit from the sudden flare.

Taking a deep breath and contracting his stomach, he focused what he though was enough wind chakra for the next move, _"Fūton: Renkūdan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet)"_ the pressurized air crashed against a big part of the raging beasts, while the rest of the jutsu was absorbed by the crystals, most turning a green color and getting brighter. "Uh… I don't like this for some reason!" as soon he uttered those words, the crystals released his technique at double the speed, with no target at all, some knocking out some of the Vulcans and the rest being absorbed and reflected again. It soon turned into a massacre as even the big Vulcans were crushed by the air bullets and Naruto was barely dodging them himself, multiple tears on his jumpsuit and not showing a sign of stopping.

A few minutes later, a shirtless Naruto panted as he could feel pain from all the close calls he had, the reflecting attacks stopped when they had either hit a Vulcan or the ground.

"Great… wish this was not the first time I nearly defeat myself…" pulling himself together, he stared at the fallen Vulcans, some starting to recover and inching away from him in fear.

"Uh… not enemy?"

"NO ENEMY?" the biggest of the Vulcans seemed to be slowly recovering too, confusion clearly seen in his face at the strange concept, humans had always been their enemies.

More footsteps could be heard and soon, what seemed to be smaller and younger Vulcans started to enter the main area. Slowly figuring things out, Naruto decided to settle things before he fell to exhaustion. "The cave is open now! Don't want to fight, just go!" Surprisingly, he ended falling to the ground unconscious after that.

The Vulcans, while confused, heard the part about the cave finally being open and took it as a sign to leave, slowly recovering and going for their stored food. None of them seemed inclined to attack the human that had only fought back when attacked first, that much their instincts could tell.

Back on the mountain peak, a lone shadow clone smirked at pulling a prank at their creator, he was sure that mass dispelling either knocked him out or gave him a huge headache. Satisfied at both their progress and vindication, he dispelled too.

* * *

The next day, Naruto woke up to see he was still on the main area of the cave, the lights dim and barely letting him see his surroundings. Standing up, he forced his chakra through all his pathways, so he could limber up with more ease. The moment he did, the crystals light became stronger and he decided to test what he had seen and experienced yesterday.

_"Fūton: Renkūdan (Wind Release: Drilling Air__ Bullet)__"_ A relatively weak air bullet was expelled from his mouth towards one of the crystals, which as expected absorbed it, glowed green for a few seconds and then reflected it with its speed doubled at a random direction. This repeated itself 4 times before the bullet crashed on the ground, its force bigger only due the increased speed.

Grinning at the results, he went through a set of hand signs and took another deep breath, _"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)"_ a big fireball was sent towards a different crystal with similar results, the glow being a reddish orange.

_"Raiton: Jibashi (Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder)"_ after another set of hand signs, a small surge of lightning was released from his hands and promptly absorbed, a yellow glow this time before the reflection.

After a few reflections, both attacks collided with the fireball easily overpowering the small lightning bolt. Satisfied, Naruto decided this was a nice treasure on its own. "A secret training area! The possibilities…" he actually drooled at what this could mean, it was a perfect way to train one's speed and reflexes, along with the danger sense any experienced warrior should develop with enough life and death situations. "Yep, no way I'm not bringing Wendy here in the future, fufufu…" he could actually feel how the little bluenette must be shivering in dread at the moment.

At his stomach's growl, he started the walk out of the cave to hunt for breakfast, he could explore the rest later just in case there was an actual treasure. He actually forgot he had lost all his upper clothing during the small fight yesterday so he ended shivering and pumping as much chakra as possible to leave the snowy peaks.

* * *

Two months later, he had fully explored the whole mountain range and trained to his heart's content. The pack of Vulcans he had fought at first had actually befriended him, or something similar seeing at least the three big ones that seemed to be the bosses constantly tried to defeat him. He may have helped those to become mad strong by accident with so much fights, but it had been lots of fun. At the end, the pack had separated from him heading towards the lower grounds near Mt. Hakobe while he decided to visit Shirotsume Town for directions to reach Blue Pegasus.

The town was a quiet and nice overall, he had even managed to sell all the loot he founded on his foraging to a small fat guy named Everlue who seemed to be the richest guy in town. For some reason the uglier the trinket, the more they guy was willing to pay.

After leaving the guy's mansion, Naruto started the walk towards the market to test the local ramen. Seeing his old jumpsuit was damaged beyond use once again, he was now wearing some of the clothes the women of Cait Shelter had given him. Black pants that were quite comfy and good for everyday use and training, a burnt orange short sleeved shirt and what he guessed was Wendy's design: A new version of his sage coat, but with long sleeves, and going for black instead of the red tone the original had. However, the flame pattern that previously only covered the bottom was spread to the edges of his long sleeves in a similar manner, and randomly on the back too, giving the illusion of wisps of fire. Also, the flames were now a dark blue color. Finally, he was wearing his Konoha headband on his neck, the black bandanna tied loosely and black sandals that resembled the ones he used before.

Unknown to him, he was already gaining a small following from the girls in town due how well the outfit seemed to fit and enhanced his looks.

He had seen there was another coat too, but with short sleeves. He was really touched, the little girl had probably been doing her best to help Lebira, Menori and old Magna-baachan to get both coats ready before he left, knowing her she was surely watching the older women work all the time and making sure the design was perfect for him. He had admired the design back on the mountains after unsealing it from the storage tattoo he had on his right bicep and quickly decided he should do something nice for all of them when he decided to go back.

Reaching the market, he did a quick scan and finding nothing that called to him, the blond started asking for either the nearest ramen stand, or how to reach Blue Pegasus. Ten minutes later, Naruto was making the owner of a ramen stand cry tears of joy at how he was annihilating the food, his wallet already feeling fat. There was even a small following from the townspeople, who were split between shock and disgust at how much he was eating.

"Men… this perfume, it speaks strongly of wanderlust and warmth. How surprising to find such an aroma in this quaint little town." The small crowd separated enough to let a short man with a white suit and orange shirt ensemble approach the stand, sparkles somehow following his every move and exaggerated hand gesture.

"I've been told by some of the local beauties that there was a boy seeking guidance towards my guild, is that right?" some of said beauties sweatdropped at how the man seemed to perceive himself as someone suave and charming, while pointing at the blond ramen slayer in a grandiose manner.

…

…

…

The crowd just got bigger and people were starting to get honestly surprised. While not the most magical aware town, having Blue Pegasus nearby made them aware of its prestige and the respect some of its members commanded. The man currently frozen in his pose being one of them. Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki may not command the charisma and beauty he thought he did, but he had power and respect as the guild's ace. And he had endeared himself to most of the town with his constant visit to supply himself with various perfumes he found delightful.

Naruto seemed completely ignorant of the commotion as he kept asking for more ramen, "Not as good as Ichiraku's, but it'll have to do for now!" Patting his belly and letting out a small burp, he sighed contently while waiting for the next order.

Not showing his slight irritation at being so blatantly ignored, Ichiya just laughed, "While I understand you must be beyond belief to be in the presence of a man of my caliber, you must show some guts and proper respect to my beauty and fragrant perfume boy!"

"Busy now, ramen is waiting for me!" waving off the older man, Naruto ignored the huge crowd that was rooted to their spots, was it sad this was the most exciting thing for weeks?

"Boy…"

"**I. SAID. RAMEN. IS. WAITING."**

Feeling a strange pressure start to engulf him, Ichiya actually felt himself sweating, "I suppose I could be the bigger man this time, you must be famished to put before ramen." Dispersing the rising tension with another exaggerated flourish, he took a seat and ordered some tsukemen. He would never admit he had been scared during that brief exchange, there was no way a kid like that could exert such pressure.

* * *

An hour later, both Naruto and Ichiya were walking towards the latter's guild, the blond trying to half-heartedly cheer up the depressed man. Apparently some of the girls from town had apparently thought the former shinobi was pretty cute and had given him their lacrima communication numbers, alongside an overall assurance he would make a wonderful Blue Pegasus mage with his style and poise. The older redheaded had actually sulked seeing those same women had constantly spurned his advances. So far, the whole trip had consisted of sulking and whining about women not recognizing beauty and a handsome perfume when facing it.

Naruto had only smiled, this was just too much reminiscent of Jiraiya to pass it off as coincidence. If he had read the man right, he would probably recover the moment he entered his guild.

Getting closer to what could only be described as a huge mix between a hotel and a mansion, Naruto actually whistled, "This place is a guild? It looks too high class compared to the only other guild I've seen so far."

"It's only fitting, only the best for a guild that just attracts the perfume of greatness! As Fiore's most powerful and grand guild, our home must reflect the style and appeal of our members!" full body sparkling while he pointed to the sky, Ichiya's boisterous voice seemed to have attracted the attention of his guildmates, as two boys rushed at them, another three girls following at a calm pace.

"Aniki!" watching the boys bow in a sign of utter admiration towards his redhead companion, the blond just blinked in confusion.

"Good to see you're not infected by the Ichiya yet boy." Years of experience with Jiraiya allowed him to completely ignore the weird interaction between the man and what appeared to be his apprentices to pay more attention to the approaching girls.

'Cute.' The three were easily as cute as Ino had been during her genin days, if not more. The older one, who seemed amused at his reactions so far was a red head with long and wavy hair in a white dress that was both simple and stylish in its decorations. Probably a year or two older than him, she radiated the kind of charm one would expect from the elder sister beauty type.

Going from their height, the one following on age would be the blond with long wavy hair wearing the fancier blue dress, her blue eyes scrutinizing him all over. Even if he rarely cared about such things, she was cute enough to make him blush slightly at feeling her gaze on him. She actually was wearing what looked like expensive jewelry and makeup compared to the redhead, who was more the natural beauty type. For the blond, the light touches of makeup greatly enhanced her features.

Finally, the last girl was a brunette with her hair being only long enough to reach her shoulders, and seemed to be straight compared to the other two. While not wearing a dress, her white blouse and blue skirt combination was well matched and looked nice. She waved at him and flashed him a smile which he easily returned.

Feeling the blond stare at him with more concentration, he finally returned the stare and gave a small wave of his hand while smiling at her. As their eyes met, she finally seemed to find what she was looking for as she nodded approvingly, "For you to not be completely entranced by our beauty is a welcome surprise, it's nice to meet you… my name is Jenny Realight." Extended her hand, she stared expectantly at her fellow blond.

Knowing from the boy's face he was confused, she used her own hand to show him she was expecting him to approach and kiss the back of her hand.

Shrugging at the weird greeting, he just walked towards the girl and imitated the gesture the redhead showed him, giving Jenny a smile after the kiss and standing straight again, "It's nice to meet you too! Name's Naruto Uzumaki." Figuring he should do the same gesture for the other girls, he turned towards the redhead first while Jenny's smile widened a bit.

'_Roguishly good looks, good sense of fashion if a bit exotic, honest and not a brute or a pervert… he was even immune to Ichiya-sama's weird charisma that had ensnared the rest of her male guildmates. His mannerisms look out of place though, it's too graceful for someone who seems to have no noble lineage…'_ and she could see it clearly from the way he walked. There was absolutely no movement or gesture wasted on his stance and walk. She couldn't discern if it was from practice or just natural instinct. The closest she could compare it would be a predator, maybe a jaguar or a panther. Its elegance and magnificence hiding its dangerous aura.

As she observed how he seemed to bow in thanks to her friend DeZille and now heading towards Riko, she decided she was just overthinking it. _'After all, his eyes showed nothing but honesty and a desire to make friends.' _She believed herself to be a great judge of character, a needed skill for a rising beauty of not only Blue Pegasus, but Fiore overall if the recent approach of Sorcerer Magazine was a sign of things to come.

On the other hand, the three members of Blue Pegasus were frowning at the interaction of their guildmates and Naruto. "He's mingling with them too easily, I don't like it."

"I must admit the warmth of his perfume is stronger than I thought at first, men… it seems to draw people in with ease. Ren, Hibiki, we need to be cautious around him… he might take our beauties away!"

"It's not as if I desire for the women to only look at me or anything…" the dark skinned of the boy duo replied looking away. Both boys wearing black suits with their shirts and slacks being of different colors. The dark skinned one wearing white slacks with a yellow shirt while the other boy had a light blue shirt with black slacks.

They were currently in a circle formation, their seriousness at this apparent threat showed when one observed their grave looks and talking as if this was a strategy session before a battle. Seconds later, Naruto just appeared in the middle of the circle shocking them enough to make them jump back and in Ichiya's case tumble and fall.

"So, those are your pupils Ichiya?" growing enmity and previous shock quickly forgotten, Ichiya snapped his fingers and purple smoke covered the three mages, the girls just groaning at the Ichiya influence at work.

"Women swoon just from feeling our presence!" Hibiki's voice was full of passion, as he started to come out of the smoke, already doing exuberant gestures and movements.

"Men can only cower at our power!" Ren followed his guildmates' example, his gestures a mirror of Hibiki's to show how practiced this introduction was.

As the smoke finished clearing, Ichiya jumped and landed between the boys, the three doing closes as close to sentai shows as one could imagine. "We are the trimens! Blue Pegasus' elite! Enemy of men everywhere, avoid lovers of the female beauty!" an scary bright pink and blue aura appeared out of nowhere covering them, golden and white sparkles making the scene even more ridiculous than any intro Jiraiya had made in his life.

Naruto actually shuddered when he realized why this was particularly scary, 'It's as if someone combined the worst of Jiraiya with Lee and Gai's antics…' fortunately, a hand on his shoulders distratcted him from that horrible mental image.

"Fufufu… it's being such a long time since a man close to the guild was not entranced by Ichiya-sama. I think we should go inside and meet the master Naruto-kun, he would love to meet such a cutie." Pinching his cheek and making a gesture to follow her, DeZille walked back to the guild followed by Jenny, Riko giggling at Naruto's pouting face from the pinch, leading him to the guild entrance after grabbing his hand.

…

Minutes later and baffled and how they were simply left behind, Ichiya sulked. Ren and Hibiki consoling their leader and quickly deciding they would show Naruto to respect their aniki.

* * *

Still being dragged around by Riko, Naruto just decided to let the girl manhandle him while he gawked at the guild's interior. It was way more lavish and expensive looking than he expected, even after observing its exterior. He had to agree with Ichiya about how it fitted well though, all the mages on the guild had a sense of fashion and elegance that made the place look more like a high class club than a mage guild when compared to Cait Shelter.

Both Jenny and Dezille could only giggle at how the blond jinchūriki's eyes were just getting bigger and bigger the more he stared at the guild. They figured that while he had flare and style in spades, he probably was humble and used to a simple life. Seeing their master attending the bar, they waved at him and pointed to the blond.

A high pitched squeal followed and Naruto found himself whisked away from the brunette to end face to face with a bald man wearing a dress, too much makeup and an expression that immediately had him on alert.

"Ohohohoho~ you're even more handsome than what the girls told! And those marks on your cheeks~!" feeling up the blond's cheeks and noticing the texture of the whisker, the man just giggle in delight.

"Actual whisker marks, so CUTE~!" with speed that completely surprised Naruto, the weird man seemed to actually inspect him from all angles while feeling him up, the shock of the whole thing leaving him unable to react.

"Accepted, you definitely have to be part of my Blue Pegasus~!"

"…What?"

"Naru-chan, you easily cover most of my requirement to be part of us. You're adorable, have style in spades and from what the girls told me, you will fit nicely with everyone here fufufu… where would you like your mark~? Maybe you want me to choose the spot~?"

Now not only confused, but a bit creeped out at the sweet tone the old man was using, Naruto finally regained enough composure to step back and shook both hands and head to clear the obvious confusion, "Uh… Guildmaster…-san? Why would you think I came to join your guild?"

"But, but… Naru-chan must surely want to join~! Such a stylish cutie could only belong in Blue Pegasus for sure! Do what Bob tells you Naru-chwaaaaan~" doing his own version of the puppy dog eyes, Naruto actually sweatdropped at the guildmaster's antics.

"Well… I just came here to see if I would be allowed to stay for a few months here, I want to see how a guild works and all. Maybe fight some of your strongest mages during that time too!" scratching the back of his head embarrassed at the confusion he caused, he was actually surprised at the slight sadness on the girls' faces. It seems people were really too friendly in this world, he had just met them after all.

"Mou~ I still think Naru-chan is just shy~!" an old man pouting at him in such a manner was something the blond would hopefully not see again. In a sudden change, the bald man's posture changed completely while he stared at Naruto with seriousness.

'_How curious… I sense no native Magic from him. At most I can only sense residues of Ichiya's and Jenny's magic, along another one two that are too faint to try to identify…'_ walking around the blond just confirmed his initial suspicion_. 'No openings at all, and it seems the thing I sensed from him at the start was no magic at all, he can't contain it completely, that excess of the energy mixes with the eternano in the air and gives the illusion of a low level mage aura. I don't think he even notices he does it at all, probably only S-class mages or really good sensors would notice the difference.'_

Trusting Jenny's word that the boy had no ulterior motives, Bob went back to his usual persona and entered Naruto's space to caress his whisker marks, "I'll allow Naru-chan to stay, but only because he's such a cutie~" winking at the uncomfortable blond, he pranced towards the bar to resume his current job.

"To reject an offer to join our prestigious guild, preposterous! It falls to me, Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki to educate you on the mistake you just made! The perfume of arrogance is unbecoming of you Naruto-san, a mage of your caliber should be delighted at the opportunity to learn from us!" while not as prone to violence as other guilds, the men of Blue Pegasus were hot-blooded enough to get excited at the chance to see their guild ace fight.

"Now now Ichiya-sama, don't you think it's a little unfair to pit yourself against a young man just like that?" trying to dispel what she perceived to be a one sided massacre, DeZille tried to wave off the growing excitement from the male half of the guild at watching their idol battle.

"Wait, does that mean Ichiya is actually strong?" tilting his head in confusion and further endearing himself with the girls of the guild at the sheer cuteness of the gesture, Naruto blinked at the red headed ace, pondering what kind of magic the man could have to be so revered by his fellow males.

Further gawking ensued while Ichiya actually laughed, the perfect chance to show off and break the hold the newcomer seem to be putting on every lady of the guild at hand! "Oh, that I am Naruto-san! But I guess seeing is believing right?" sparkles following him, he decided to lead Naruto to an open field outside the guild, followed by the whole guild including an amused Bob.

"Naruto-kun, would you reconsider? While Ichiya-sama may not look the part, he is the ace of Blue Pegasus, certainly not a man you should underestimate."

"Mah mah, it's nice of you to worry Riko-chan, but I'll be fine. This is what I came for after all, fighting strong people gets my blood pumping!" Pumping his fist upwards while flexing an arm to lessen the girl's worry, Naruto took off his Sage coat and handed it to the girl, "Mind taking care of that for me, it was a gift so I have to take good care of it." Winking at the blinking girl he started to stretch while waiting for Ichiya to set any rules for their fight. DeZille and Jenny joined Riko in blinking. It seems their new friend was hiding a nice set of muscles from them if his toned arms were a hint of the rest of his body.

**Play Darklore - Aquarian Age OST**

"Let's keep it simple, we go until someone gives up. Alright with you Naruto-san?" at the blond's quick nod, Ichiya decided to end things fast and took out a vial of perfume, "Begin!"

Throwing the vial at the blond, Naruto decided to doge for safety and did a quick jump backwards, only to see the vial break and the perfume leaked out without any bang to it. Curious, he inched closer and took a whiff of the perfume, not his best idea for sure.

"AGHHHHHHHHHH!" quickly falling to the ground and yelling in pain, Naruto could only roll around and grit his teeth and the sensation that was overwhelming his body.

"Such a shame, even if you are a low level mage, I expected you to know better than this Naruto-san. My Pain Perfume's fragrance is one of my easiest moves to end a fight without resorting to needless violence. Hopefully you'll learn from this experience." Doing a gracious flourish, Ichiya turned back and snapped his fingers, as if to indicate the fight was over and someone should help the blond.

"….Ahh …what are you …talking about…? This is not even close to over!" to the surprise of everyone present, Naruto slowly stopped panting and grunting in pain to stand, a smirk on his face. "I admit I deserved that one for being cocky… but this level of pain is nothing to what I've endured before!" starting with slow steps, the blond started to gain speed while ignoring his pain towards the baffled redhead.

"To endure one of my techniques with just determination… your perfume is stronger than I thought at first Naruto-san. Let's see if you can handle pain that well." Backpedaling, Ichiya started to throw with surprising accuracy more vials at the blond.

"Consider this me learning the lesson!" gathering wind chakra towards his right fist, he made a powerful jab that generated a wind shockwave that simply blew away all the vials before heading towards an even more Ichiya, who barely managed to dodge the attack before it crashed against a tree, which exploded from the pressure seconds after that.

Not giving Ichiya a chance to recover, Naruto was already inches away from the smaller man while pulling his fist, "Ack!" once again barely dodging the blond, a small crater formed the moment his fist impacted the ground, the sight quickly making Ichiya reevaluate the surprising boy. _'How come, I can't sense him using magic at all?!'_

Deciding to not risk it, he took a different vial and instead of throwing it, he actually inhaled it. A purple aura surrounded him and his shirt and suit started to strain against the rapidly growing muscles. Only his pants remained after his rapid change and now he stood as a mass of bulging muscles, making a gesture for the blond to try again.

"Let's see you break my defence now that my Power Perfume is active!" the blond didn't doubt him for a second and started to do his best job at pummeling Ichiya, his punches and kicks doing no apparent damage to the redhead.

Jumping back and taking a few breaths to recover from the exertion and the pain that still circulated his body, Naruto couldn't' wipe off the grin off his face.

"This is so cool Ichiya, nothing on the mountains had actually endured my punches like that so far! This was what I wanted!" letting chakra flow through his body, he once again lunged at Ichiya, his punch actually making the man flinch seeing he had decided to not dodge.

'_That actually hurt! Nothing to write home about, but facing tons of those in fast succession…' _gulping at the sudden increase in the blond's strength, Ichiya tried to take another vial and inhale it, but soon discovered the blond was not going to give him the chance.

Letting his senses guide him, Ichiya gave his back to the run and tried to make a run for it, only to be constantly blocked from any significant leap by the blond, who was entrapping him to the small area where they had started the fight, the ground started to get more craters and becoming more of a small hole that was only getting the deeper the longer the fight went.

'_Amazing… even if Ichiya is not someone to love fighting, to be able to completely dominate the fight's flow and not give him a second to use any of his support perfumes is amazing. And he deduced that just from watching him use his Pain and Power Perfumes!' _Bob had dropped his usual persona again to analyze the fight to the best of his ability. He was not disappointed by the blond.

And while Ichiya had not received any real damage after the first strikes, he knew the blond had him beat on stamina if his increasingly wilder grin was a sign of things. He decided to stop the fight for both Ichiya's and his guild's sake. The battlefield was starting to remind him of the aftermath of a classical Fairy Tail brawl.

"Both of you, stop!" instants later, Naruto was already at Riko's side, taking his coat back from the gaping girl.

"Hehe… that was fun! I think I'm gonna enjoy my stay here if this was an appetizer of what a guild is all about!"

All of Blue Pegasus' men had their jaws on the floor, the ladies only gaping as widely as possible at the battle, the blond just giving them a foxy smile.

* * *

**I'm actually surprised I got my first real complain untul chapter 3. Just in case the reviewer in question bother to read this update. The training plus deaging has a good reason. Not sure if more people think like you so will explain if more people actually ask me why I did that.**

**For people still wondering about the Naruto girl, no right guesses yet. Can confess Ayame is a red herring and the hinted girl is actually a really subtle clue.**

**I hope I actually did the Blue Pegasus people right, even if this only really applie to Ichiya and Bob.**

**Now onto questions and request for help as usual for my readers :P**

**Anyone knows Bacchus' age during the Grand Magic games, or just date of birth in general?**

**Is there more info on Brain/Zero besides what you can read on the manga and the Fairy Tail wiki?**

**By the way, seeing I'm starting to get used on using songs for the story, I thought I could share two songs and have people try to guess where they could be used. Obviously giving the characters that may be involved in the song too.**

**Delicious by Poets of the Fall (Naruto and Ultear)**

**Destiny by neko (Naruto and Levy) / Also known as the Phi Brain S3 Opening**

**Finally, in case any readers of this also checked out my other story, it's no longer a one shot! The Naruto/Sekirei idea sadly will be updated slowly seeing its harder to come up with idea compared to this fic. Also added another challenge to my profile.**


	5. Chapter 5

**I do apologize for the long wait between chapters, details on the AN at the bottom as usual.**

**I own nothing of Naruto and/or Fairy Tail.**

* * *

A bit over two months after Naruto had left the guild, Wendy and everyone else had felt how much of an impact he had from just a bit over a month of staying. Things had gone back to a semblance of calm and normalcy that everyone wasn't completely happy to get back.

The men were now finally able to enjoy their time without fear of a prank during their meals, or their bath time, or before sleeping, or while taking a nap… practically any moment of the day! Roubaul was still waiting for his beards and eyebrows to grow to their previous look. But we're detracting from the point, despite all that the men missed the bursts of excitement that came with that hurricane of energy! Also, all of them wanted payback for that brawl on the night before his departure.

The women on the other hand, were worrying for the young bluenette seeing she had suffered a small regression. Now that Naruto was not at her side, the little girl seemed even shyer than before if that was possible. While she still talked to them and passed most of the days at their side, they had noticed how she seemed to look for anything to latch on to avoid thinking about the blond. She had tried to not worry, but now that two months had passed, she constantly wondered when he would return or if he was lost, or in any danger, even if another guild might tempt him with fame, prestige or god forbid, delicious ramen.

She had stopped opening up to them, and was getting clumsier seeing her mind was on the clouds most of the time. Lebira and Menori were confused on how to deal with this due lack of experience with children, so both had asked Magna and Pepel, one of the few couples in the tribe, to help Wendy so that everyone could recover the small ray of sunshine she was.

Currently, the young mage was heading towards their home, seeing Magna had promised to help her with learning to cook, only the basics though, as she was still too young to handle ovens or fire in general, or sharp objects according to the old woman. Getting to their home, the little girl knocked thrice on the door, her sharp ears listening to the creaking sounds of a chair and the steps approaching the door, "Magna-san?"

"Close, but only old Pepel here Wendy." Opening the door was an old man who was wearing a simple white shirt and brown pants, his brown hair look messy, and some white hairs were noticeable. Slowly letting the girl inside and pointing to a small table, he took the seat besides where Wendy sat and patted her hair softly, "Is everything alright little one? You seem down these days."

"I-I'm fine Pepel-san." Quickly looking down to avoid the stare of the man, she slowly fidgeted in her seat hoping he would let the subject drop, "Sorry Wendy-chan, but my old husband is a stubborn one. That and I'm curious too. Is it about Naruto-chan?"

Walking slowly while carrying two big plates with eggs and rice, Magna entered the living room, a warm smile on her face, "Let me finish setting breakfast dear, then we will listen to you ok? Believe me, it will help to unload all and despite his appearance Pepel is good with advice." Putting both plates on the table, she left once again for the kitchen while the man seemed to wait patiently for their guest to feel more relaxed.

Minutes later, the three were seated and sharing breakfast, loafs of bread and milk accompanying the eggs and rice that while simple were nonetheless delicious. Wendy slowly started to relax, seeing the two adults were not pressuring her at all and just enjoying her company so far.

Nibbling on a loaf of bread, Wendy could only stare at how the couple seemed to be at ease, small smiles and gestures showing they were enjoying their time together without the need of words. _'So this is how a couple lives? It feels nice.'_ Letting her thoughts drift, she imagined living together with someone, Naruto and Jellal in this case. _'Naruto-niisan would irritate Jellal at all times, their personalities would clash too much. Jellal would never do anything though, he's too stoic to actually fall for baits and taunts…'_ If only…

"Owie!" trying to rub her head, Wendy glared at Pepel, who still had his knuckle on her head and was chuckling, "That brat was absolutely right for once, your glares are adorable, don't you agree Magna?" sending a mischievous wink to his wife, Magna could only giggle in agreement.

"Mou… Pepel-san is just as mean as Naruto-niisan…" pouting, Wendy felt said knuckle bopping her again, "Mou!"

"Hehe… that husband of mine… despite how much he argued with Naruto-chan he actually is doing his part of the deal." Now curious to what the homely woman meant, Wendy focused on her ignoring the grimace on the man's face. "Before Naruto-chan left, he told Pepel that if he kept bopping you for using the –san suffix till he 'fixed' you he would get a nice bottle of expensive rum." Before the young dragon slayer could grill her husband for details, she decided to do her part of the deal with the blond, "And it's Naruto-niisan now Wendy? Now that's just adorable!" Getting that full blush was worth it for sure, now she could fully see why the blond enjoyed doing it so much.

'_This was so mortifying! And here I thought Magna-san was just a kind old wife…'_ Seriously, when did the blond had time to strike friendship with these two anyways? It was all so weird, _'I know I passed most of the month with Naruto-niisan, so how can he be so friendly with nearly all the guild? He never left me alone to hang out with the others on his own…'_ maybe someday Wendy would learn about the Shadow Clone jutsu.

"Feeling at home yet?" breaking her out of another of her rather frequent as of late Naruto-induced drifting of thoughts, Wendy glanced at Pepel, realization slow coming to her mind. The way both adults acted so far was similar to how she and her self-appointed older brother acted most of the time. No wonder she was so relaxed and at home now.

"Yes dear, I think even Wendy-chan can't deny now this is a blond related issue she has been dealing with. So how about it sweetie, think you can confide in this old couple with your problems?"

"H-Hai…" feeling the encouraging gaze of the woman on her, Wendy nibbled on her bread again while she gathered her thoughts and a bit of courage.

"Ano… it's just that… I really miss niisan." Just saying that lifted a weight off her shoulders she didn't knew was carrying until now, "He said two months, and he hasn't returned… why he's not back yet?"

Feeling a bit of nostalgia and a pang of sadness, Magna just smiled warmly at the child, "Did he promise to return?"

"Hai…"

"Then its fine isn't it? Naruto-chan is a child with a strong sense of honor, as long as he promised you, there's no way he won't return."

And before the bluenette could argue, Pepel just shook his head, "A man always keeps his word, that's what makes him a man after all. And annoying as he is, the brat would sooner die than abandon you and you know it."

"Don't mind him too much sweetie, Pepel is just cranky at how much Naruto-chan reminds him of his own younger self. He was such a wild child back then… always looking for adventure, that's why you should trust his word."

Shaking his head at his nosy wife, he could only smirk at their guest, "If he was just a bit like me, then you wouldn't be worried since that would mean he's strong." Puffing his chest in obvious pride, he waved his hand nonchalantly before hitting his chest softly, "Boys at that age have a desire for adventure and wanderlust, even more in a new land. If I was him, I would take months enjoying the sights before returning home."

"…but if he doesn't?" both adults blinked at that, Wendy's maturity always surprised everyone at the guild. Normally children at her age would be content with simple encouragement and words, she always wanted a good reason to believe them.

"Because if he is just the tiniest bit like my Pepel, and we both know he is sweetie-" winking at the young child with a mix of wisdom and mischief in her eyes Magna turned serious, "then he will turn mountains upside down and stomp on anything that dares to stop him from returning to someone he considers precious."

Blushing a bit at the seriousness of the stare the woman was giving her, Wendy started nibbling on the last of her bread to avoid her eyes.

"He is your 'oniichan' now right? If that doesn't mean your precious to him nothing would, just believe in him as much as he believes in you." Scoffing at how the girl still seemed doubtful, Pepel decided he had said enough and proceeded to end his food.

'_As gruff as always dear…'_ shaking her head at her husband's bluntness, Magna just moved her chair to be besides the bluenette and put an arm over her shoulder. "You still don't get it, do you sweetie?" noticing her small nod, Magna just smiled at her gently and patted her head.

"People like Naruto-chan and my Pepel are blunt, honest idiots. They always mean what they say, and are sooooo easy to read when it comes to their feelings… so I can already guess why he's your oniichan now. He promised to eventually take you with him on his travels rights?" it was a testament to how long both adults had been together that being called an idiot only prompted a resolute nod from her husband, even if he grimaced immediately at his own reaction to the insult.

"_Besides… I'll eventually have to train you so we can travel together, so there's no way I would leave such an adorable girl alone for long."_

Blushing at how she could have forgotten such a promise, Wendy slowly began to understand things. _'So Naruto-niisan thinks I can be strong enough to be at his side? But how… there's no way I can be strong like he is.'_ Remembering some of the feats she had seen him do with ease put her slowly forming foal in perspective, and odds were not good so far for the little girl if that was the standard he wanted from her.

Age had given both adults enough experience to discern some of the emotions going through the girl thanks to her eyes, and both sighed, _'I can see why Naruto-chan asked this of us, all her shyness and abandonment issues have left some scars she's not even aware of… her maturity is working against her on this one too.'_

"You should know you can do practically no wrong on his eyes, don't be such a worrywart girl. He loves you, so you should enjoy the time before he returns as he obviously expected you to do. A little girl brooding all day and night is annoying."

"Pepel!"

"What? It's what everyone is worrying all the time as of lately, she needs to be more of a little girl and less of a responsible mage. She's nearing 6 and already seems to think she needs to carry the world on her shoulders. Without Naruto around to practically force her to enjoy life's little joys she is lost. And the rest of the guild is always so shaky on how to help her we've reached the point I'm the one saying all this when it's obvious!" punching the table of frustration, Pepel stood now that his breakfast was eaten and left the house, slamming the door obviously frustrated.

Both women were left speechless and blinking for a few minutes, not even his wife had suspected the man had such a good read of the whole guild and its current atmosphere, _'That husband of mine…_' staring at the downtrodden girl, she kneeled to console Wendy knowing her husband had been perhaps too crass with her.

To her surprise, the little girl had some tears in her eyes, but also a small smile on her face, "Pepel-san is really like Naruto-niisan right?"

"That he is, it's also the main reason they can't stand each other."

"Have I… worried everyone so much Magna-san?" caressing the girl's cheek and then wiping her tears, Magna only gave the girl her best motherly smile, "Only because everyone likes you so much, what would we tell your oniichan if we left you sulking all the time?" seeing how the little girl was once again blushing so much, the woman knew they had already done enough for now.

"O-o-onii…chan?" blush increasing at the endearment, Wendy only could shake her head in embarrassment.

"It's obvious he won't accept anything with –san, -sama is just ridiculous and personally I dislike how oniikun sounds." Making a small nod as if to indicate her opinion was more of a fact, Magna just decided to carry the little girl and give her a hug. "Besides, if you don't cheer up soon and only sulk all day, who knows? Maybe another little girl with less shyness will call him oniichan and snatch him from you fufufu…" feeling the first honest glare ever from the little girl, Magna could say the blond really had a deeper impact than thought on Wendy.

'_You're really a strong girl Wendy… you just need to understand it.'_

* * *

A shivering blond sneezed again while bracing the snowstorm, seems someone was talking him a lot. Cait Shelter sure was into gossip if he was mentioned there so much. He need to get to Shirotsume and Blue Pegasus soon, nearly two months on the mountain was more than enough.

A few days after Wendy's talk on Cait Shelter, more precisely on a forest that was near the Blue Pegasus guild, Naruto was currently tapping his foot impatiently, watching how two members of the guild were currently discussing strategy, booooring. A few meters and hopefully out of listening range, Ren Akatsuki and Hibiki Lates were currently watching a replay Hibiki had managed to record with his Archive Magic of the bout Naruto had with their aniki a few days ago.

"Are you sure we can win this?"

"I am. But just in case... we have no audience." Faltering for a second at the part where Naruto started to dominate Ichiya, Hibiki stared at his teammate and sighed, "Just remember, even if aniki was unable to do anything besides evade, he was not actually damaged by this newcomer. That means that his strength is not S class yet, otherwise the Power Perfume would've been less effective. We probably can classify him as at least high B class overall, if not an A class mage."

"Are you sure, Ichiya-aniki is the guild ace, and even if he is Low S class overall, his body endurance showed marks of the blond's punches and kicks." Ren was still unsure of the whole practice duel idea, but both the blond and Hibiki were determined so he had to support his friend on this.

"That was mostly due Naruto's battle sense according to Master. He trapped Ichiya-aniki with his speed to stop him from using his speed enhancing perfume. Otherwise the blond would have been overwhelmed with ease according to Master. His speed should not be above A class but aniki loses mobility from only using his Power Perfume so he was sandboxed."

"You know I can hear you right? You won't get to plan like this for all battles so hurry, I'm starting to feel sleepy here."

'_Dammit!'_ using his Telepathy Magic, he opened a communication channel with Ren, _'We can add above average senses to his skills just in case. So far, it seems we have to find a way to keep the fight mid to long range to stand a chance. Think your Air Magic can do it?'_

'_Hn. I should be able to keep him busy enough as long as you can cover me, think your shield can handle it?'_ now that they were aware he had good senses, Ren was taking his eyes off the blond to avoid more surprises, as annoying as it was.

'_At most, the shields should endure one hit and from there I will have to put them up again, so we can't risk him getting close. I'm worried about Archive not having any information from his magic, seems it's Wind so we should assume he has at least one long range move, ready?'_ getting a small nod from his partner, Hibiki glanced at the blond with a smile, "We're ready now, are you Naruto-san?" from the wild grin on his face, there was no need to guess.

"Begin!" throwing one of the smoke balls they normally used for their Trimens introduction, Hibiki and Ren used the brief cover to head to the forest and try to play it smart as long as possible.

Amused but still wary, Naruto just started to do small hops to limber and be ready for any surprise move, after the smoke dissipated both mages were gone, but he could feel the small tremors in the forest.

Channeling chakra to his ears he tried to pick up any conversation but the only noise besides the flora of the forest were the tremors.

'_Is their teamwork that wood?'_ suddenly he heard whizzing which made him jump back and avoid getting hit by a slowly forming avalanche of flying rocks, soon jumping to the side to avoid another incoming group of them.

For a few minutes, the attacks kept going relentlessly with the blond just dodging with ease after knowing the assault would not stop, 'There! Now attack to his right Ren!' surprisingly, the attack was successful this time and at least a dozen of rocks hit the blond relentlessly.

"Ouch!" making a corkscrew motion while throwing a punch upwards, the wind current covered him from further rocks and he jumped back using the attack as a cover to recover. Not really hurt, Naruto decided to just keep dodging and tire them out.

'_Right!'_

"Oi!"

'_Right!'_

"What?!"

'_Up!'_

"C'mon!"

While still relatively unharmed compared to his usual battle record, Naruto was getting annoyed. Somehow, every time he seemed to get into a good enough dodging rhythm to focus on advanced towards the forest and just pummeling to oblivion both mages, one of their attacks was accurate. He had even noticed how most of the failed attacks were getting weaker and the successful one stronger.

"Those guys, they're good… sorry forest." Pumping chakra to his legs he made a huge leap to the sky.

'_Oh no, don't even hope you get that chance. Ren, send everything you can towards this point in the sky!'_ already predicting how high the blond would get from the leap and energy he assumed was used. Hibiki tried to focus on their opponent and at least hinder his view putting out as much Archive magic screens as he could on the blond's sight, accidentally putting out too much energy on them.

In an unexpected twist, all the screens indeed appeared in front of Naruto, but they promptly exploded and added to the upward impulse he had, helping him avoid most of the incoming rocks. After seconds of being stunned by the weird trick, Naruto smirked at his luck and decided to finish his hand sign sequence, forming a fist while he allowed the fall to increase his speed and a crazed grin etched his features, "I hate that type of fighting guys! _Fūton_: Kōha Reppūken! (Wind Release: Hardliner Gale Fist)" seconds later, a crash and a huge tremor could be felt in all the forest and its surroundings, the zone of impact already covered by a huge could of dust and dirt.

On the midst of it, Naruto stood while huffing from the exertion, "You guys aren't that bad, just unlucky I'm crazy to adapt techniques on the fly."

Sadly no one heard his victory line, as both Blue Pegasus members were sprawled on the crater created by the blond, eyes swirling and multiple bruises on their bodies and their clothes ruined.

A while later, Naruto arrived at the guild, instantly getting glares at the condition of their fellow mages and losing some of the favor he had with most of their fangirls, "Hey, I went easy on them. They're smart and annoying to fight for sure, Ichiya can easily make them strong if he tries."

Jenny, Riko and DeZille only blinked and shook their heads. At least the boys seemed to just have minor scratchs.

A delighted Bob suddenly appeared wearing a nurse's outfit and led a completely terrified Naruto to the infirmary, good thing he was fine because that would surely terrify and traumatize the bishounen duo for a long time to come.

"Mou~ I so wanted to nurse Naru-chan back to health too!" Yep, Uzumaki endurance was a gift of the gods if it helped avoid such a fate.

* * *

The next day, Naruto was just hanging out on the bar of the guild, basking on the death glares of both Ren and Hibiki, "Had a good rest at the infirmary guys?" adding some growls of anger was just too good for Naruto to ignore, "Careful there, no need to make the girls think you're brutes right?" grinding their teeth, both mages tried to calm their growing animosity, and just in time, seeing the team that Jenny led was entering the guild, Riko and DeZille flanking her while they approached the bar to report to Bob who was manning it as usual, "See? Just chill and enjoy the day."

"Hn." Ren always gave such Sasuke vibes, poor guy.

"Fine… was there any need to be so brutal with us seeing it was just a practice duel?" that last move was just overkill in their opinion, nothing like the direct approach he had with their aniki.

"Huh? As I told the girls yesterday, I took it easy with you guys." Faced with the same incredulity that the girls gave him yesterday, he decided to wait until the girls joined them before saying more, maybe they would get it seeing they had wanted the fight in the first place.

'_Ren?'_

'_Hibiki…?'_ confused at the rare use of Telepathy outside battle, Ren just raised an eyebrow and waited.

'_Are we so… outmatched? We won't be able to become aniki's support if he is serious about going easy on us.'_

'_Hibiki…'_

"Guys?" confused at the lack of their usual confidence, the blond decided to distract them before the girls ended reporting with the guild master, "By the way, can you explain to me about your magic?"

"Wait, you didn't even try to figure out what was happening during the fight and just crushed us with that wind move?" he had done his best to record that technique and there was no info yet, so he was curious how the blond worked to see if that could give him any insight on his magic.

"Yep! You guys had the control of the flow and I just decided to overwhelm you using my advantage in both experience and power. While I indeed hate that type of fighting, you did way better than I thought, all the fight was at your pace until my finisher. Except for one part… what the hell was that screen thingie explosion at the end?!"

"That was part of my main magic, Archive. It's normally used to record all kind of data and categorize it, but my control over that is sketchy at best. What I did was an extension of that magic, I was trying to obstruct your vision with the use of the information screens, but I used too much magic and they exploded. That gave you an extra push that saved you from Ren main's attack." Making a hand gesture, Ren decided to explain his part in the fight.

"My role for the fight was to use my Air Magic to keep you at a distance. The moment we gained cover in the forest I started using an attack I call Aerial, I take advantage of my control over the air to generate tremors that normally affect the ground, using that debris as projectiles by making them levitate with my air magic."

"Neat! The whole screen thingie was a really good idea, it would have forced me to use my attack recklessly just to stop the incoming rocks from Ren's Aerial, shame I lucked out. Still… that explosion on its own is a good move don't you think? You could break an opponent's focus with it and use it to lead it to an allies' attack if you learn to control it enough."

That… was actually a good idea. Hibiki decided that investigating about his own magic and potential uses with Archive itself could merit further thought. After all, if the blond admitted they had dominated the fight and only lost due power, they just needed to get stronger.

He shared a look with Ren, and both seem to agree. Even if it took from their time to make women swoon at their greatness, maybe taking a mission and making their moocher tag along would help them in the long run.

On the bar, Bob just pointed to the blond and the three girls seemed to agree, deciding to just ask him right now so he could prepare.

"Naruto-kun!" skipping over to the boys, Riko smiled at the blond and seemed to sway on her spot waiting for the other two to catch up, a playful smile on her face.

"Riko-chan?" blinking at his friend, Naruto once again missed the slight twitching of Ichiya's pupils at how familiar the Uzumaki was with their adorable guild mate

"Sup?"

"Not much, just going our fight yesterday and chilling. You guys?"

"Back from a small delivery mission to Shirotsume. Master wanted us to ask you something for tomorrow though."

Now that had Naruto intrigued, "Us?"

"Yes, us Naruto-san. It seems Master Bob wants you to see how our guild works more closely so we'll be going on a mission along an S class mage tomorrow. That is if you want of course fufufu" DeZille's demure laugh fooled no one as she reached them, everyone could see Naruto's face about to explode from excitement at the opportunity.

"Indeed, it seems the fight with Ichiya-sama impressed Master enough to allow Naruto-san to join us tomorrow." Walking with a grace he was slowly getting used to see, Jenny gave a small nod at the blond before standing alongside Riko.

"Awesome! I hope it's something dangerous though, or at least exciting!" barely able to stay on his seat, Naruto seemed to vibrate before just giving the three girls a huge smile.

"While I don't share your hopes, it is a possibility. Otherwise, an S class mage wouldn't be going along us don't you think?" taking a seat alongside the blonde bundle of excitement, DeZille just ruffled his hair while smiling teasingly, flustering him a bit.

"Does that mean Ichiya? Or are there other S class mages here?" he found it hard to believe they would be so pleased if it was the small red haired man accompanying them though.

"Thankfully, Ichiya-sama has a pending mission to contact the Rune Knights in a few days, so I doubt he'll have the time to join us. Most likely, it will be my sempai Karen playing the escort role for us tomorrow." Noting his confusion at the name, Jenny gave her fellow blonde a small smile, "You haven't met her yet Naruto-san, she just returned earlier today to the guild after an interview and photo session she had with Sorcerer's Magazine. That's why she's my sempai actually, I'm learning the ropes on being a model from her."

"Oh, that's the magazine Wendy-chan seems to be obsessed with! I knew the name sounded familiar… is being a model fun?" tilting his head to one side, Naruto just stared expectantly at his fellow blond, not noticing the twitch of the girls at the cute gesture of the 12 year old blond.

"Well, it depends on your definition of fun but I like it. Besides, if you stay around long enough you're bound to get an interview or two. Blue Pegasus constantly appears on the Sorcerer's seeing we're quite the stylish guide." Flicking her single ponytail and putting one hand on her hip, she posed quite coquettishly, making Naruto blush again.

Averting his gaze from Jenny, he decided to divert the attention from him before DeZille started teasing him, he could see the glint in her eyes and was reminded too much of Anko. "So, is she strong?"

"While she's not strong in the sense you seem to be interested, she's not an S class mage for nothing. Karen is a well-known Celestial Spirit Mage, and currently holds two of the twelve Golden Keysof the Zodiac, along many silver keys." Watching his expression, DeZille could only giggle at him, "You have absolutely no idea about Celestial Spirit Magic, right Naruto-kun?" slowly nodding his head, he started to worry seeing the gleam on DeZille's eyes came back, a sense of dread slowly engulfing him.

"I've noticed ever since you arrive you always seem excited about learning about our magic, as if you knew nothing about them… could it be Naruto-kun was never taught properly about magic?" slowly walking towards the blond, her hips swaying in a way that distracted all the males watching, she reached the blond and put him in her embrace, carrying the short blonde with ease.

"That won't do… not at all. It seems I should _educate_ my dear Naruto-kun on a lot of things so he never shames the name of Blue Pegasus while he's with us fufufu… it's an oneesan's privilege." Taking the dazed blond with her, all the men couldn't decide between their utmost pity and righteous anger at how the redhead practically took the blond to her quarters.

The women on the other hand, just shook their heads at their fellow guild mate and her elder sister fetish. Poor Naruto, and it was just past midday!

* * *

Walking alongside Menori, Wendy seemed much chipper compared to a few days ago. Talking with Magna and Pepel had helped recover a lot of her previous mood and now she was just trying to enjoy life at Cait Shelter. Currently, both girls were returning from a small trip to the outskirts of the Waas Forest to gather some spices for dinner and medicinal purposes.

"So… how goes the oniichan practice Wendy?"

Instantly embarrassed, the bluenette could only grab the hem of her dress and play with it to avoid the knowing glance of her guild mate, "…Bad. It's just so embarrassing! Do I really have to?"

"Depends, are you starting to enjoy getting bonked on the head?" An immediate shake of her head, good.

"Do you think he'll like it?" finally getting over her shyness, she just stared expectantly at her friend.

"He'll love it, besides, I bet you that'll get you all sorts of imouto privileges if you do. Like sweets, or even that Sorcerer's Special on the most prominent mages you were looking forward to so much." Attacking some of her known weaknesses, the small dragon slayer continued walking in a daze, never noticing the moment she started to walk towards a bush and ended falling into it.

"Wendy!" slowly moving some of the branches of the bush, Menori just started at the small girl, her face on the ground and more importantly, an egg with weird patterns on the eggshell at her feet.

* * *

**As usual, there are things I dislike about the chapter's flow but I think I prefer that over being content with each chapter and eventually regretting it.**

**The long wait was due something nearly every writer I like tends to suffer, dead of their computer. Not sure if it's some kind of landmark for fanfiction writers but whatever. Hopefully I can get it back soon.**

**One review got me curious, have we reached the point where Naruto joining Fairy Tail is annoying for fiction? I admit it's the easies way to integrate him into canon but not sure if people are tied of the same approach no matter the number of twists. Regardless, I doubt my take on Naruto ends joining, despite fitting with many of the qualities he would like on a guild.**

**Next, some people guessed the Naruto girl fast! Seems removing Ayame from the options made it easy to guess. So yep, it's Shion.  
The question now is whether she ends on Earthland or not so I'll leave that to a poll on my profile, regardless of the outcome she'll have an impact on the story.**

**Sadly I've found no more info on Brain/Zero so might end just winging it. On the other hand, it's a good thing Bacchus had his mage card info revealed, helps with some ideas I had.**

**On something completely unrelated, I disliked the latest FT chapter but have hope it may becoming something interesting soon (not much hope though). The Naruto manga on the other hand... like many I lost any faith with the Sasuke turnover so not much to say, except I don't see how they'll beat Madara except with a cheat like I did haha.**

**And finally, a review pointed out how surprising was to have a time skip so soon. While I agree, I find it necessary seeing otherwise I would taking ages before reaching the start of canon. I'm guessing I'll take 3-4 chapters to reach Lucy's introduction so expect various time skips, hopefully they won't ruin the flow.**

**I hope this entry was good enough to keep your interest so let me know by reviewing! Also, might be looking for a good beta to help with my many typos and grammar issues :)**


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